The Norwegian drummer Thomas Strønen, an inspired collagist of solo percussion sounds and an open-minded collaborator too, might have imagined this kind of encounter long ago - but it took the pandemic’s impact on real-time get-togethers, and the insight of ECM producer/boss Manfred Eicher, to make it a reality.

On Relations, four international improv virtuosi – Americans Craig Taborn (piano) and Chris Potter (saxes), Norwegian folk musician Sinikka Langeland (voice, and the zither-like kantele), and Spanish pianist, percussionist and vibraphonist Jorge Rossy – remotely joined Strønen during lockdown in a series of studio-united duets with drum tracks he’d already recorded in the pin-sharp acoustic of Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo.

‘The Axiom of Equality’, Taborn’s improvisation with a Strønen recording the pianist had taken care not to listen to beforehand, is a streamingly vivid piano line against insistently brittle snaps and clatters. The brushwork behind Potter’s tenor on ‘Weaving Loom’ stirs the saxophonist into gracefully muscular Coltranesque twists and turns, and into a deftly delicate soprano lyricism on ‘Ephemeral’; while the arresting calls of Langeland’s ethereally haunting voice and chiming kantele roll across Strønen’s sparse sonic landscape on ‘Beginners’ Guide to Simplicity’ and a busily-insistent one on ‘Nemesis’. Maybe there’s not quite enough to go on for the remote improvisers, but there aren’t many percussionists in Strønen’s world-class league who could have even considered a venture like this.