The subtitle of this album (“Tibetan voice meets Russian piano”) gave me pause. I’m all for pan-ethnic fusions in principle–but in practice, some work better than others, and this one didn’t sound promising to me. But actually, for the most part it works very well. Batagov seems to be improvising along with Lhamo’s keening, melismatic vocals, and since her melodies are generally non-tonal he’s able to make do with lots of pentatonic extemporizing and swaying V-I changes. He manages to bring quite a bit of musical interest to those minimalist gestures, and Lhamo’s voice is lovely. Recommended.