Released as part of ACT's new ‘Duo Art’ series, this collaboration between two of France's top young jazzers is an absolute charmer, pitched sonically midway between Sidney Bechet and the sort of trad chanson you hear on the Paris Métro on a lazy Sunday morning. The latter resonance comes courtesy of Vincent Peirani and the fact that he plays the accordion, of course. Peirani is very highly rated – he was named ‘2013 Artist of the Year’ in one mag, and has been awarded the Prix Django Reinhardt. He made his ACT debut last summer with Thrill Box – that's what some people say the accordion becomes in Peirani's hands, others a ‘treasure chest of excitement and wonders’ – which also featured Michael Wollny and Michel Benita. Emile Parisien is no slouch either: perhaps inevitably, there's more than a touch of Jan Garbarek about his soprano playing, but he locks step beautifully with Peirani here – try the wheezy sonorities and moody cat-and-mouse interplay of ‘Schubertauster’ or the soaring mysteries of the climax to ‘Hysm’. The debt to Bechet is more directly explored on ‘Egyptian Fantasy’ and ‘Song of Medina (Casbah)’, both Bechet originals.