As pioneers in the consolidation of improv scenes in Chicago and San Francisco during the early sixties, percussion extraordinaire George Marsh and pianist W.A. Mathieu can take pride in their unquestionable O.G. status. Games/No Games takes its name and basic concept from the experimental methodology developed by free music movement originators as a way to explore and systematize the open, inviting possibilities of improvisation. Borrowed/adapted from drama techniques, these "games" are non-restrictive sets of basic conditions and instructions, devised to allow the flow of musical creativity to manifest itself. La Monte Young's famed Composition 1960 No. 10, which consisted of nothing but the instruction, "Draw a straight line and follow it", is the most extreme example of the unexpected situations that can be produced by this approach. An intense, close, almost telepathic level of musical communication can be achieved, reaching such levels of anticipation that the results become an expression of -- to quote Mathieu's excessively exhaustive liner notes, which inconveniently demystify the music-making process -- a Zen-like ability to "hear compositionally". When it comes to improvisation, however, artistic can turn autistic, and what the musicians experience as a mystical communion of subtlety and transparent lucidity faces the risk of reaching the listener as solipsism and mindlessness. The album's 21 tracks, most of which are three or four minutes long (because the musicians need to remember what they have been playing as their sessions ebb and flow), generate engaging soundscapes that transcend the sublime feeling of rapture that possesses the improviser, and translate as a priced slice of sonic ravishment. They can actually reach the listener, inviting him/her to witness how self-expression dissolves into a collective mind and sound starts "playing" the musicians. And all of this happens as the duo's output goes beyond the superficial appearance of gratuitous, aimless noodling that people usually associate with this kind of demanding music. Some of these games involve extreme musical economy (the one called "Sparse As Possible"), trading leadership without a visual cue ("Who Leads") or establishing non-metered pulses ("Pulse"). The most successful cuts are those based on the "Just Play" technique ("5" and "20", for example): no pre-conceptions or pre-arrangements are set, and music erupts from wakefulness. That's the most beautiful option of all: the game of no game. Consider it a challenge to our ego-driven, linear narrative-addicted listening patterns.