Across two discs, Braxton and his former pupil Brenders, both on saxophone and other reeds, interpret two pieces of Braxton’s fascinating ghost trance music. Braxton’s compositions are colourful and thoroughly engaging, offering a bridge from Ornette Coleman to Webern, with a battery of extended techniques to fill things out. The pieces contrast recurring, driving unison (or quasi-unison) sections with starker passages — rapid, speech-like squalls with loosely interwoven melodies. The most beautiful feature of the two works is how they retain a strange semblance of cyclical structural “integrity” while giving the sense that the whole form is disintegrating. Plenty of scope is left for both players to bring their vocabularies to the table. This is especially evident when each piece arrives at its climax, and least sober-point. Slippery and elusive, these sections navigate a spooky psychedelia rather than unleashing a macho free-jazz onslaught. The elder saxophonist’s trademarked pinched sound finds a great match in Brenders’ singingly warm tone. Both extremely curious about their instruments’ capabilities, each tints and taints (in the best way possible) the two works with assorted soggy whispers, hoarse multiphonic wheezes and serrated barks.

Expect the unexpected from this dynamic duo. Avant guitarists Berthiaume and Sharp have unloaded 11 shots of improvisational gold. Far from being a traditional guitar record, Base is rife with noticeably un-guitar tones: laser-etched bliss, coruscating noise structures and electronic mayhem are on tap. A variety of attack vectors were engaged in the creation of the pieces but in the end, quietude loses out to furious flurries of sound. Quebec-based Berthiaume and veteran NYC player Sharp wield their instruments, and all of their effects-processing gear, with utmost aplomb. There is seemingly no end to the diversity of textures achieved. This recording documents the perfect pairing of two master craftsmen happily going about doing what they do best: overcoming the limitations of the guitar to construct engaging alien soundscapes.

The avalanche of noise that erupts as the play button is depressed, while superficially exciting, made me ask, “Isn’t this the same ‘one, two, three, go!’ with which countless other improvisers open their sets?” Prepared as I was to be under-whelmed after further decent-yet-familiar free-improv gesticulations, I was awestruck once it came to the forth and fifth tracks, excerpts from the duo’s performance at L’Auberge des Quatres Vents. The first of the two charts the evisceration of new age music, beginning with fierce tinkling bells that grow more frantic over a Fripp-like, e-bowed guitar chorale. Palardy Roger begins a throaty chant (calling to mind Sidsel Endresen as much as Diamanda Galas), alongside pulsating metallic sheets emanating from Frith’s guitar. Additional surprises follow. On the next track, industrial drone and clatter accompany Frith’s breathy ad hoc croon. Later, amidst a flurry of soft cymbals, a slide guitar solo emerges. The piece bridges the gap between early Sonny Sharrock and Einstürzende Neubauten (especially the Blixa-like vocals). These unexpected flavours serve as a reminder of how exciting it is to hear improvisers exercise their freedom to borrow ideas from outside of the standard free-improv lexicon.