Rob Clearfield & Quin Kirchner - Concentric Orbits LP

Happy to announce the latest from Chicago-based percussionist Quin Kirchner, this time in an intimate duo setting with France-based pianist Rob Clearfield. Concentric Orbits is Clearfield & Kirchner's gorgeous debut recording as a duo, although they have a long history of playing together over the years in Chicago. You will likely remember Clearfield from his standout playing on Kirchner's The Shadows and The Light (2020, Astral Spirits), and here on Concentric Orbits he takes a bit more of the foreground on the piano with Kirchner's solid, driving support moving the proceedings along. The two sidelong tracks offer different sides of the duo; "Orbit 1" dives in with a insistent and repetitive left piano groove that eventually unfolds into a splattering of free improv that subsides. Cymbals, bells and more from Kirchner lead us through the second half of the track, with Clearfield continuing variations on the original ostinato through to the ending. "Orbit 2" jumps out immediately w