Duet of pipa (a many-stringed instrument of China) and (double) bass. The effect here is of an exotic and excellent flavor of blues and jazz, with Wu Man (the pipa player) bending and tremelo-ing notes. A couple of seconds of audience applause adorn the end or beginning of most tracks but it’s no more than two or three seconds. Highly recommended.

1. Unbelievably cool and moving mellow blues; applause at the beginning
2. Here Aoki bows a bit roughly and Man plinks rather rapidly, taking us on a more experimental ride; applause at the end
3. Traditional (that is, Chinese) inspired, picking up a bit of speed and soul as it goes
4. Bluesy bass line repeated, restated, recast and melodically pleasing pipa trills
5. Here it’s the pipa that gets down with a style akin to fingerpicking on guitar – a melody on the lower strings and rapid arpeggios on the higher strings, all of it done within the bounds of a toe-tapping rhythm
6. A full and funky bassline struts as the pipa executes smaller-scale but more complex variations on the same theme – plays chords, in other words – bending and stretching with the most perfect fills; gorgeous
7. A funky bass solo
8. Starts with some raw pipa strumming and comparatively mild bass runs; both gain speed and strength in parallel, maintaining their relative positions – pipa in the lead, bass in the back
9. Percussive sound of drumstick on bass strings with pipa playing along in a flitting, rising style builds up tension until pipa suddenly breaks off – what a release!; then do it again
10. Slow, reserved tune
11. Mournful / angry bowed bass and regretful / accusing pipa converse – really, that’s what this evokes!
12. Studio take of the beautiful song from track 1