Listen closely to this session and you can hear history being made. Recorded a full five months before Peter Brötzmann’s world-shaking Machine Gun (on which, of course, both Brueker and Bennink played), it was the very first LP to be released under the auspices of Instant Composers Pool and stands as a defining document of the birth of European free improvisation. It’s also a complete blast, in every sense of the word. The term ‘instant composition’ seems particularly germane here with Brueker and Bennink imposing spontaneous yet utterly convincing form on these fiery improvisations. ‘Music for John Tchicai’, for instance, leaps straight into a thunderous roar with tortured sax howls, rumbling drums and clashing cymbals, before suddenly dropping down into a quiet interlude of tabla and soft, mewling sax, and finally returning to the fray with joyous abandon. Recorded with an echoing, spacious sound, there’s a truly epic energy to the date, all the more remarkable for being generated by just two young musicians. Along with this first-ever CD reissue of the original album is an extra disc containing a live performance by the duo, recorded in Germany six months later. Captured in a lo-fi but perfectly listenable recording, it features six long, questing improvisations that reveal just how much heat they could muster in person.