Norwegian clarinettist Andreas Røysum has been steadily making a name for himself in recent years, releasing a couple of fine albums leading his youthful Ensemble and helming the up-and-coming Motvind label. He's also struck up a relationship with older Swedish reeds warrior Mats Gustafsson, both as musicians and as outspoken activists who helped to persuade the Kongsberg festival to ditch corporate sponsorship from a major arms manufacturer. The two started playing together in 2021, and this duo debut catches them in an intimate gallery setting between Covid-19 lockdowns.

It's easy to see why they’ve bonded musically. Both display an abiding interest in the physical possibilities of breath, exploring textural extremes as much as they do melodic ideas, with a lot of percussive interplay of rattling keys and fidgety parps. But they cut loose too. Gustafsson demonstrates his debt to Peter Brötzmann with some rough, bluesy growling on baritone sax, and huffs up a breathy ferocity on slide flute. The pair lock into tightly coiled double helixes of fluteophone and clarinet that send the energy skyward, but it's when they alight upon spontaneously discovered moments of repose that the strength and subtlety of their connection really shines through.