She’d probably dislike the description, but Joëlle Léandre must be regarded as a pillar of the Improv and exploratory music establishment. Pianist and composer Sirjacq has been one of her students at Mills College, California, and seems equally at home in the realms of free Improv and ‘serious’ music. Although they are a generation apart, the two musicians are remarkably homogeneous, the result not only of having played together for some while, but of careful and responsive listening during performance – the mark of the best improvisors. They produce music of such coherence and cohesiveness that most of the 11 pieces on the album sound like meticulously considered compositions, even though they were improvised from scratch. Exemplary.
