Iranian-born, Sydney-based Hamed Sadeghi trained as a Persian classical musician in Tehran and plays the tar, a long-necked lute with a brittle sound like a banjo. In Vazesh, he’s joined by two Australian musicians – reedsman Jeremy Rose and, on double bass, Lloyd Swanton, best known as one third of those masters of tectonic drift, The Necks. With this follow-up to their acclaimed 2021 debut, The Sacred Key, Vazesh mine a similar subterranean vein of longform improvisation with an hour of music drawn from a single live performance.

The opening moments are truly spinetingling, with shuddering arco bass, throbbing bass clarinet in its lowest register and the plucked tar adding raw tension with hushed, insistent curlicues. As the music unfolds, double bass and tar develop a deep connection, wood and metal in tactile, physical communion. When Sadeghi’s rapid, single-string strumming elicits loud slaps of the neck from Swanton it feels like primal music from a lost ur-continent.

In fact, while Rose is undoubtedly skilled at navigating and embellishing this gnarled organism, his playing on alto sometimes feels just a little too pretty, lacking the raw muscularity that Sadeghi and Swanton summon. Even so, it’s a fascinating date, both taut and dreamy.