by Dan Warburton This outstanding album, recorded in Christoph Amann's studios in Vienna (where numerous fine releases on the Erstwhile and Durian labels have also been conceived) features Grob regulars Werner Dafeldecker on typically lugubrious bass and quartertone trumpeter Franz Hautzinger, whose extraordinary sounds (often resembling the amplified internal digestive process of some large and fearsome animal) are beautifully complemented by Sachiko M's sampler (who seems less interested here in her trademark ultra-high register sine wave squeals) and the piano playing of AMM's John Tilbury -- "the dean of British new music," as the press release describes him. Not without justification, either: Almost all free improvising pianists are compared, ultimately and inevitably, to Cecil Taylor, but Tilbury is the exception. His benchmark recordings of contemporary classical music (John Cage, Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, and Cornelius Cardew) reveal an extraordinary subtlety of touch and an acute ear for pitch, both of which are brought to bear on this quiet, introverted, but intense and intensely moving music.