A quartet of unique and unconventional improvisers explore worlds of complex sonic textures demonstrating ensemble playing of the highest order. The sound world that is conjured on this CD owes as much to electronic music as to the free improvised music styles from which the musicians hail from, and although three of the four instruments are purely acoustic, it is perhaps the aesthetics of electronic music which have had a clear influence on their combined sound. Textures reminiscent of early synthesizer music and jagged sounds that could have originated from digital processing are replicated and transformed through purely acoustic and analogue means, whilst always retaining the fluid form of an improvised structure. John Butcher who has pioneered a unique sound and technique on the saxophones, creates tones and resonances that reminds one of the crackling and sputtering of analogue synthesizers. Rhodri Davies, using various metal objects, such tambourine cymbals on a closely miked harp, brings to play his trademark abrasive sound world that functions more like a subterranean noise generator than the celestial associations that the instrument provokes. The highly prepared piano style of Cor Fuhler, which makes use of various electro-mechanical devices (including 12 ebows), makes the piano sound like never before ,at times like a sine-generator/overtone-cluster at other times like an electric zither, and every now and again perfectly timed chords on the keys that remind us of the orginal function of the instrument. The only real electronic instrument, Thomas Lehn's EMS synthi A , a classic analogue synth with a very rich sonic palette, as well as an archaic sounding spring reverb, is played with the gestures and expression of an acoustic instrument. The resulting music always retains a lightness and transparency of texture, sharp unexpected corners ,a quickness of communication between the musicians, and a cohesiveness as a group that blends so well together, that one is sometimes left wondering who exactly is playing what and how.