Drawing parallels between music and the environment in which it is made can sometimes be inappropriate. But ‘The Hill’ in the Chihuahuan desert “in the middle of nowhere in Texas”, creates a specific context for this meeting of McPhee and Butcher, two titans of creative music in America and Britain, that should not be readily dismissed. There is an overwhelming stillness and slow-moving energy in the performance that resonates with the images of the players dwarfed by an endless sky and road disappearing into the distance. There are thus lengthy passages on this concert recording where each saxophonist assumes a discreet presence, harnessing their energies in a soft, almost glacial drift which impacts by stealth. These moments of contemplation flow in and out of choppy waters, though. On the 20-minute opener ‘Sometimes Yes, Sometimes No’, a piece with scene-stealing textures, the two men push their instruments towards whirring drones and screeching harmonics, while bird-like whistles conspire to bring an angry symphony of nature into earshot. As effectively as they work together, McPhee and Butcher present two solos as well as a duo and the considerable space each individual takes is entirely justified by his beauty of tone and authoritative phrasing. The former’s precise, sculptural articulation on tenor has a heartbreaking romanticism as well as sense of confrontation, while Butcher’s wide range of textural colour, daring fortissimo and potent staccato riffs, is noteworthy. ‘A Forty Foot Square Room’ is the most direct indication of the duo’s engagement with its surroundings, but the whole album is an appealing listen in which the artists assert their substantial strength of character.