ROOM

Individually, guitarists Nels Cline and Julian Lage have played in many settings. Cline, a member of Wilco, has worked with Julius Hemphill, Charlie Haden, and many others; Lage’s extensive resume includes Gary Burton and Yoko Ono. *Room* is generally quiet, but things can get charged, and the album doesn’t lack edge. On Lage’s “Calder,” the pair play acoustic guitars, and you can hear traces of unplugged John McLaughlin. Cline’s “Racy” references blues, but it also spirals off in other directions. “Freesia/The Bond” opens like a ballad, goes on to hint at non-Western music, and wraps up in a pop-like mode.

What do you get when you take two masterful instrumentalists with very divergent stylistic outputs and put them in a studio to play together...