Though these Finnish jazzmen have not recorded as a duo until now, saxophonist Timo Lassy and drummer/producer Teppo Teddy Rok Mäkynen have been working together for well over a decade in Five Corners Quintet, the Teddy Rok Seven, Timo Lassy Band, and Jo Stance ads well as on pop and electronic albums. In fact, they go back further than that: Both born in Helsinki in 1974, the pair attended the prestigious Sibelius Academy together. There is a fine if somewhat limited jazz tradition of the sax-and-drums duo that has resulted in some groundbreaking albums: John Coltrane's and Rashied Ali's Interstellar Space, Anthony Braxton's and Max Roach's One in Two, Two in One and The Long March, Dudu Pukwana's and John Stevens' Mbizo Radebe, Evan Parker's and Paul Lytton's Two Octobers, etc. Lassy and Mäkynen deliver something a bit different from all of them, which is not to say the pair don't travel to the vanguard. These short pieces evolve out of composed frameworks then expand to make room for intimate improvisation. Those familiar with more groove-oriented sounds from both players are in for a real surprise.

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