The first Clarinet Trio recording appeared almost 20 years ago; Live in Moscow is its fifth release. There's been a personnel change in the intervening two decades – Theo Nabicht departed, to be replaced by Michael Thieke – but the ensemble remains very much Gebhard Ullmann's baby. For this date, recorded live four years ago, as the title could be interpreted as suggesting, in Moscow (at the Theatre School of Dramatic Art, Tau Hall, to be precise), the three clarinettists were joined for half the set by Russian alto saxophonist Alexey Kruglov. Across the first four of eight tracks, all written by Ullmann, the clarinets, running the gamut from bass to alto, weave lines around one another in growlingly ambient, exploratory antic manner – though just over a minute into ‘Seven 9-8’ there's a burst of sweetness that could have issued from Benny Goodman's lips. Kruglov's entrance adds another voice to the reedy choir, and he proves adept in contributing to the improvisatory fray: ‘Animalische Stimmen’ sounds like an avant-garde Punch and Judy show. My kind of thing, basically.