Following closely on the heels of last year's Blue Note debut, Squint, View With A Room offers a change of tonal density with Bill Frisell joining Lage’s trio as a guest, an association helped on its way through their mutual association with saxophonist Charles Lloyd.

The two guitar line-up supported by an on-point rhythm section that brings to the surface memories of the sunken treasures of Marc Johnson’s Sound of Summer Running from 1998, when Frisell was paired with another guitar virtuoso, Pat Metheny. In a rare example of a comparison not being odious, the creativity at work here is on a similar level – two consummate musicians at one with their craft bringing composition after composition alive with invention, empathy and mutual respect – no grandstanding here and music is the winner. Lage and Frisell are so closely intertwined, both aesthetically and intellectually, that on ‘Auditorium,’ once the who is doing what and when conundrum recedes, a unity of purpose emerges that is breathtaking in its accomplishment.

It is one of those albums that does not betray its secrets readily, and can be returned to time and again when a fresh nuance, an inspired moment of counterpoint or perfectly framed melodic variation reveal themselves to contribute to a broader understanding of the inspired creativity at work here.