The Sisypheans

An apt title, perhaps, for a singular double act whose relentless international touring has seen them achieve cult status as much by stealth as talent. However, there's nothing downward about their trajectory (the Greek god Sisyphus rolled his rock up the hill only for it to roll down, and so on for eternity). By putting their collective shoulder into touring, rehearsing and composing, this hirsute and rugged duo – Cretan laouto player George Xylouris and Australian drummer Jim White, musical legends both – have crafted a spacey, majestic sound that's uniquely theirs and the fiercest of followings to accompany it.

The Sisypheans, their fourth album, finds them flexing their pecs at the top of Olympus, setting out their stall with ‘Tree Song’, a seven-minute reimagining of a traditional tune that finds Xylouris in his element, his voice rich and quavering (‘Don't go away, stay with me/My three-branched basil tree/My short bushy bitter-orange tree’ he sings in Greek) and White adding sensitive accents and dark, glowering pathos. Throughout, on songs called things like ‘Goat Hair Bow’, ‘Black Sea’ and ‘Inland’, the two friends explore a craggy otherworld of myth, tradition and rolling free jazz, urgent here, brooding there, taking the listener further and ever higher.