Their long-running musical relationship has been cemented by Iyer’s membership of Smith’s excellent Golden Quartet and now the two come together for a duo performance that has all the sonic richness as well as structural ingenuity to be expected from artists of their pedigree. Using the imagery of the late Indian abstract artist Nasreen Mohamedi as the inspiration for what is the centerpiece suite of the album Smith and Iyer establish an advanced rapport that facilitates individual expression while steering clear of excess or hyperbole, and the blend of attack and restraint works very well. While the hefty lower register of the keyboard is often explored to produce tonal floods that have an ‘effects’ like quality, the actual use of machine- based audio, by way of Iyer’s laptop, expands the range of timbres in subtle but effective ways, capturing something of the ineffable character of Mohamedi’s work. When Iyer switches to the electric piano the gradual shift into another more luminous, liquid world of sound makes for a pleasingly vivid moment, defying initial expectations of an all-acoustic set. Although the aesthetic of each artist has its specifics Smith and Iyer are bound by a desire to go down roads less travelled both harmonically and rhythmically, so the organic shifts of tonal centre or pulse only add to the ‘open sky’ of the music. While the aforementioned ‘plugged in’ sounds are welcome Smith’s use of the mute, his generation of whispering but piercing phrases, often with non-western resonances, also gives the performance breadth as well as depth. It is not common to assign terms such as sensual to music made by artists perceived as avant-garde, due to the way the genre is stereotyped, but there is a lyricism as well as provocation here that reflects well on the rich subject matter.