Carsten Dahl and his collaborators, Nils Bosse Davidsen and Stefan Pasborg, don't talk to one another. Or at least they didn't while they were in the studio recording their second disc together, Mirrors Within. Verbal silence was agreed in order to focus on developing improvisional musical fluency between the three of them. Notes not words, they said (without actually saying anything), putting spontaneity before preconceived melodies and structures, and empathetic understanding before discussions about musical direction. Where the trio's previous outing, 2019's Painting Music, featured a number of very well-established standards – Jerome Kern's ‘All The Things You Are’, Harold Arlen's ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’, Miles' ‘Blue in Green’ and ‘Solar’, even Joseph Kosma's ‘Autumn Leaves’ – Mirrors Within was created on the spot, more or less ex nihilo. The canon informs the approach but provides none of the tunes this time out. Two tracks, ‘Falling Down’ and ‘How I Hear Beauty’, took shape from a few chords committed to paper by Dahl but otherwise the album consists of a series of short (largely three- and four-minute) improvisations made up and given final and lasting recorded form there and then. The quality of the invention – not least Dahl's own Jarrett-ish runs and sallies – and the crispness of the performances bespeak a fine musical empathy between the band members; all lead, all follow.