I confess that I approached this album with some trepidation. The cover shows an oud player and a guy behind an apparently random pile of drums, and that didn’t look very promising to me. I was wrong. Dimitris Mahlis is a wonderful oud player who comes from the Turkish maqam tradition but is also deeply influenced by the music of the Orthodox Church; Chris Wabich coaxes a universe of sounds from his unusual percussion setup, and together the duo creates music that is by turns bittersweet, contemplative, and intense. This is a very special album and should find a place in all world music collections.