" Osaka based architecture student and boss of the Flying Swimming label Kouhei Matsunaga is no stranger to the split CD format, having already released collaborative ventures with Niko Skorpio and Mertzbow. To inaugurate Paris based kokeko's Prele imprint, he has teamed up with ex-Reynols guitarist/dronester Anla Courtis to produce nine colouful tracks of evocative electronica. Things take a while to warm up, the disc beginning with two rather austere and spacious original compositions, Courtis's "Amnesia Of Amnesia" and Matsunaga's "Broken L also R", but the first of three Courtis's remixes of Matsunaga material, "Latest Research On Metaphysical Properties In Pochoclo Acaramelado, Part I", is decidedly more chunky. The contrast between Courtis's get-your-hands-dirty lo-fi and Matsunaga's hi-tech polish is keenly felt throughout, no more so than is the justaposition of "Pochoclo Acaramelado, Part III" with "Sea Weed Rmx", Matsunaga's reworking of Courtis's material, which gives the album a freshness and unpredictability too often lacking in today's electronic music. The most striking track is the one on which neither participant can hear what the other is doing, a "telepathic collaboration" recorded in September 2004 (midnight Japanese time, midday in Argentina), in which various inscrutable rustles and crackles (Courtis ?) lie treacherously half-buried in a menacing swamp of filtered harmonics (Matsunaga ?), out of which strange and wonderful creatures rise and dance. In contrast, the half-hearted flute tootles, gnarly guitar and expletives of the following "Sudden Collaboration" add little of substance. However, the final "Togaria Collaboration", in which Matsunaga's filters chomp up and spit out Courtis's guitare in style, serves as a timely reminder that there's always an element of hit and miss involved in improvisation, and the misses are often more exciting than the hit's. (Dan Warburton) "-label press