Ross Hammond/Jon Bafus-Shiner; self-released cassette, 2014

This cassette, procured from Ross Hammond earlier this year at the excellent Gold Lion Arts space in Sacramento, had been forgotten by Disaster Amnesiac in the ensuing months, as I'd stored it in a drawer.
Anyway, thank heavens for re-organizing jags, as it presented itself to me, underneath my Sony AM/FM Walkman during a recent reshuffle.
Made up of two tracks, Tones for Roscoe Mitchell and For the Defenders of Middle Earth, Shiner features Hammond in duo with drummer Jon Bafus.
The pair lay down some swift, sinewy lines on the first track, with Hammond getting great North African style picking from his clearly clean guitar, while Bafus skitters and pounds out Free energetic drum kit-speak along side of him. This piece fades out at the end, while the duo are in full-on expressive mode, which leads to the other side's plaintive beginning passage; here they let the tones ring out a bit more as their exchange begins to climb a sonic ladder up into a syncopated lock step groove that leads out.
With that, the tape ends, and this listener is left wondering when I can see Hammond/Bafus live again.  Short, sweet, and solid, this one.