Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson's "Searching for the Disappeared Hour"

Art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time. 
- Jean-Michel Basquiat

When last heard from here, the guitarist-composer-bandleader Mary Halvorson capped an extraordinary series of albums for Firehouse 12 with an outing by her Code Girl group that featured the surprising and welcome return to recording of Robert Wyatt. That outfit, sans Wyatt, tours Europe next month. Meanwhile, she's back with a second release from her duo with Swiss-born/Brooklyn-based pianist-composer Sylvie Courvoisier, produced by the indefatigable David Breskin and due for release October 29 on Pyroclastic. 

On Crop Circles, their previous collaboration from 2017, Courvoisier and Halvorson adapted material from their past for the duo format. For their new, pandemic-inspired album, Searching for the Disappeared Hour, they created brand new material, both composed and improvised. It's a rewarding spin whether you're focused on the makers' craft, or prefer to spend an hour immersed in its sonic bath, enjoying the sensations they created.

The opening "Golden Proportion" gives you an idea of what they're up to: a collage of embryonic ideas that sounds for all the world like lovely Ludwig Van's "Moonlight Sonata" colliding headlong with the contents of Mary Halvorson's melodic unconscious, replete with her signature pitch-bending disorientation. "Lulu's Second Theorem," dedicated to Courvoisier's cat, demonstrates that the duo can weave complex melodic patterns without stepping on each other's toes. The ebb and flow of Halvorson's "Torrential" reflects the way social isolation during the pandemic has altered people's time perception. 

The guitarist dips into her bag of electronic tricks to offset the harmonic density of Courvoisier's "Mind Out of Time," while on the pianist's "The Disappearing Hour," they navigate a succession of dynamic shifts. On my favorite composition here, "Gates and Passes" -- the title perhaps anticipating the resumption of touring for musicians -- Courvoisier unfolds an elegant melody while Halvorson skirts the edges of tonality around it.

Of the improvised pieces, "Four-Point Play" is an angular, impressionistic study, with Courvoisier delving into her arsenal of extended techniques. "Moonbow," inspired by a mistake Halvorson made during the recording of the previous album that the musicians decided to develop, opens dissonantly before moving to more harmonious ground. The shimmering spaciousness of "Party Dress," captured while the musicians weren't aware they were recording, shows the level of melodic invention that occurs whenever they are in a room listening to each other.