This historic 3CD set, resurrected from the formative period before free music became an occasional byword for a tired parade of rote turns, collects recordings by the first, string-heavy, incarnation of Iskra 1903. The group came about through a shared desire to work without a percussionist, a move which allowed these pieces to open up, with the trio often scratching inventively about the peripheries of silence. Webern's atonal serialism exerts as much influence here as the free jazz wig outs being received at the time from across the Atlantic, coalescing in the nervous fidgets so redolent of ‘insect improv’. But this trio were tearing up the rulebook, not simply writing a new one. How can your music truly be free, when you're denied all the options? Iskra 1903 struck the right balance, dismantling compositional components, while embracing more familiar tropes if the mood dictated. Case in point, the beautiful finale of ‘Improvisation 0’, where Guy's classically-infused arcos accompany Bailey's timorous metallic ticks, picked from his guitar's head, a tender, emotive duet that wouldn't sound out of place on one of Max Richter's film scores.