Bass & Mandolin

Classical bass player Edgar Meyer and bluegrass mandolinist Chris Thile first teamed up on a 2008 duets album that fused their two different musical words with astonishing experimentation and virtuosity. They then invited cellist Yo-Yo Ma and fiddle player Stuart Duncan to join them for 2012's The Goat Rodeo Sessions, an exquisitely crafted summit-meeting of bluegrass, jazz and classical excellence that was a Songlines favourite. On Bass & Mandolin, Meyer and Thile are back to a duo again, their two instruments sounding like they were made for each other, one deep and resonant, the other light and trilling. They are perfectly juxtaposed as they trade push-and-pull rhythms and start/stop riffs of breakneck speed, with the bowed bass often taking the lead melody and flurries of notes from the mandolin cascading around it.

The occasional augmenting splashes of piano and guitar seem superfluous. Both men are clearly geniuses of their instruments, and much of the playing sounds freewheeling and improvisational – although given the complexity of the interplay one suspects the ideas must have been extensively worked in advance. Occasionally, they drift into esoteric, rarefied realms. But although such challenging music was never meant to be easy listening, mostly it is imbued with a visceral sense of fun and an irrepressible joie de vivre.