Recorded on the album Walk Across the Surface of the Sun and re-issued on the album Intertwined (Albany Records)

The title refers to the notion of the two string instruments stepping outside of their traditional settings. Both koto and violin find themselves in unusual roles; raging, driving, spitting out notes. Following a slow intro, near-constant cross-rhythms and metric displacement make for a bristling textural tension — as well as a challenge for the players. The piece is perhaps best described by the words of one violinist, who aptly put it, “I feel like I’m playing electric guitar in Japanese!”