If you only know Frisell from lush Mike Gibbs orchestrations of swoonsome sentimentalities like ‘Beautiful Dreamer’, then prepare for a shock. Breaking the Shell is a collection of free improvs, re-visioned folk songs and sonic landmines that provoke, surprise yet thrill. Always the guitarist with a thousand voices, in these stabs and slashes of distortion, Frisell recalls those heady days with Zorn.

Downes meanwhile has found a unique voice in the pipe organ, as evidenced in his works for ECM. Here the natural time lag of the instrument fits well with Frisell’s halting sense of time. Neither seem to want to play ‘out front’ so on the likes of ‘May 4’ it’s not the ‘soloing’ that matters but how the different textures merge or clash. In contrast, ‘Kasel Valles’ has broader horizons, the organ rich and flood plain wide.

That the material doesn’t dissipate into formlessness is down to the marshalling skills of Cyrille. With a rolling tom here or a snapped cymbal there, Cyrille corrals and commands with a subtle ease. His is a masterclass of underplayed and spacious surety, whether on ‘Two Twins’ or his own ballad ‘Proximity’ which is a flower burst of melody amid the primordial urgings that surround it.