At a time when conventional genres are being crashed together by tin-eared producers in a vain attempt to create music with some sort of marketable novelty value, the existence of recordings such as this--and most of them seem to be on ECM, funnily enough, where work of this kind has always gone on at a purely artistic level--is somehow reassuring. That said, this combination of Brahem's oud, Surman's high and low reeds and Holland's bass probably works as well as it does because the Arab influence is allowed to predominate, at least on the more memorable tracks. Individually, Surman has always been interested in non-Western musics and falls easily into his role. Furthermore, despite the fact that he was the member of the trio for whom the music presented the greatest learning curve, Holland's bass playing is as sensitive here as ever, knitting seamlessly into Brahem's lunging, loping melodies, as if they were duetting on a single enormous instrument. Wonderful stuff. --Roger Thomas