Chris Thile & Edgar Meyer

Chris Thile & Edgar Meyer

Bass & Mandolin

(Nonesuch)

If you've seen the supernaturally gifted Chris Thile playing a solo concert, you'll know an album of him playing mandolin with sometime Skip, Hop & Wobbler Edgar Meyer playing double bass will be nothing like as skeletal a musical prospect as its title might suggest. This is their second duo recording since they began playing together 15 years ago and their already remarkable musical understanding has grown phenomenally. It features 10 musical conversations between two virtuosi, some of them sounding quite spontaneous, loose even, until, as on It's Dark In Here, they riff with brilliant togetherness. Elsewhere, there's an almost Satie-esque minimalist beauty to I'll Remember For You, where Thile switches to guitar and Meyer to piano, and a fantastic variety of colours, tones and attack from both players as Meyer bows an intricate response to Thile's deliciously crunchy rhythmical call or they deliver sweet, gentle melancholy before revving up fleet-fingered, near-orchestral thunder. An utterly fascinating partnership.

Rob Adams