Swiss pianist and long-term Brooklyn resident Sylvie Courvoisier, and NYC guitarist Mary Halvorson first recorded together in 2017, releasing the album Crop Circles after a single live collaboration.

While the duo’s debut revisited and refashioned existing compositions, for this follow-up they’ve written a dozen originals, which highlight just how well matched they are as both composers and instrumentalists.

The opening two tracks, Halvorson’s ‘Golden Proportion’ and Courvoisier’s ‘Lulu’s Second Theorem,’ are both based on complex, interlocking patterns, with the piano tracing baroque, clockwork fugues and the guitar springing like tightly coiled wire. In fact, throughout, the endlessly inventive Halvorson dips into her bag of tricks, flicking out trademark effects and techniques that add a certain unpredictability.

On the aptly named ‘Faceless Smears,’ she indulges in comical smudges while the piano plays it straight. On the creepy ‘Four-Point Fun’ the guitar is a more abstract noise generator, broadcasting sci-fi whooshes and sirens while Courvoisier thumps and strums the piano’s innards.

And, on ‘Moonbrow,’ Halvorson summons a cartoonish robot yodel to accompany sweetly cascading keys. You can practically feel how much fun they had making this record.