Lust Corner

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In which French guitarist Noël Akchoté - known for his collaboration with Steve Arguelles and Benoit Delbeq in trash-jazz trio the Recyclers - joins forces alternately with American plectrum-wielders Eugene Chadbourne and Marc Ribot for a series of inspired duets. Over the last two decades Chadbourne and Ribot have, between them, played with some of the most outstanding figures in contemporary music: Bill Laswell, John Zorn, Arto Lindsay, Marianne Faithfull, Jello Biafra, Tom Waits... & al, but they're happy to defer to the session's leader. The pieces here are largely Akchoté's own, although there's a healthy smattering of Ornette Coleman tunes into the bargain. The music ably takes in hard bop, free jazz, outrageous HM chording, scratchy C&W; needless to say, it's all handed with equal amounts of skill and verve. And humour - you can almost hear these players grinning as they race through the material. As with all Winter and Winter's artist edition series, Lust Corner is quite exquisitely packaged. Quite apart from the usual pleasing corrugated card sleeve in which the CD comes (more proof, as though it were needed, that the hideous industry-standard jewel box can be avoided) the package includes a booklet of photographs by the notorious documentor of Japanese erotica Nobuyoshi "Tokyo Lucky Hole" Araki. A bonus.