This engaging collection of piano/drum duets spans more than a decade and pairs Fresno-born, Calgary-raised pianist David Haney with five different sticksmen (or stixmen, in the spirit of the album’s title), recorded in both live and studio settings. The first track, ‘Angel Foot’, begins with a bit of chatter, the question ‘What are we doing?’ and laughter, nicely summing up the freewheeling, good-humoured quality of the 10-track disc as a whole. The three cuts featuring Italian drummer Giovanni Barcella, recorded live in Gent in 2012, have a glitchy, self-deconstructing feel, with drummer and pianist matching one another blow for tricksy blow. Haney studied composition for six years with the Czech-American composer Tomas Svoboda, a fact marked here by the appearance of ‘Improvisation on a Theme by Tomas Svoboda’, recorded live in Portland, Oregon with Bernard Purdie in 2009. The final number, ‘House Party Starting’, featuring Dutch free-jazz drummer Han Bennink, is the earliest- recorded cut (20 June 2003 in Vancouver) and ends the disc on a characteristically playful note.