Collaborations can be a hell of a gamble. Fortunately, it seems that in the world of the underground music lover, collaborative ventures always seem to turn out to be synergetic exercises that yield amazing results. Churinga Canaries is such an endeavour: a one-off group effort improvised by four of the brightest lights in the UK underground music dog-and-pony show. A rundown of the participants should be more than enough to cause many of you to drool with excitement. Phil Legard (Xenis Emputae Travelling Band), Alex Neilson (Scatter, Richard Youngs collaborator, etc.), Tirath Singh Nirmala (formerly John Clyde-Evans of Hood) and Phil Todd (Ashtray Navigations) assembled in Leeds in chilly December 2005 to bang out some noise and melt the ice right out from under themselves with a warm bowl of sonic porridge. The results are two stunning long-form tracks of joyful jazz-inflected psych-noise in the vein of some of the wilder Ash Nav moments. Neilson's propulsive yet amazingly free drumming serves as the perfect background for the virtual maelstrom conjured up by the other three improvisers. About five minutes into the leading track, Under Heavy Rent, the sound is so dense and chaotic that it's almost dizzying. The foursome manage to keep themselves and their sound from breaking apart into a million tiny pieces, but just barely. A Sovtek Swirl starts off subdued, with a recurring thematic element gluing the shards of our dumbstruck minds back together again. By the time the disc is finished however, you'll be left panting in a useless heap on the floor. This is powerful stuff, not to be taken lightly. Don't say I didn't warn you