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Accordion, violin and voice, all pitched at their most unearthly, twine and curl together in nine extraordinary compositions here. In this second record together, accordionist/singer Miss Murgatroid (Alicia J. Rose) and violin-and-vocalist Petra Haden build mirage-like musical landscapes that flit from torch jazz to periwigged minuet to gypsy campfire songs. The vocals take center stage, building perhaps on Petra Haden's experiments with a capella arrangements (she last recorded The Who Sell Out entirely by herself and without instruments). They sound, for the most part, like anything but voices, billowing in wordless clouds, punching staccato blots of rhythm, sliding and scatting and executing the most arcane harmonies and counterparts.

The main instruments share timbre with the two women's voices, the accordion as rich and tremulous as an alto singer, the violin as keening and high as a clear soprano. There are no sharp edges, then, in these collaborations. You listen to the accordion sometimes, thinking it is a voice, the voices wondering how they morphed from strings. It helps, perhaps, that there very few words. In "Fade Away", a shard of oblique poetry emerges in slouchy jazz singer phrases, and in Middle Eastern "We Formulate" you can just discern the title phrase among arabesques of non-verbal tone.

But the best cuts, perhaps, are nonlinear and abstract. "Sleeper" is a lucid dream in sound, serene, motionless and full of slow blossoming notes. You can picture Rose compressing her accordion with infinite patience, Haden, likewise, drawing her bow in slow motion across the strings. A bit of Jerome Kern's "Summertime" in the violin nudges us into alertness at the end of the song, but up to that point, it's been like a trance: odd, lovely and unforgettable.

Standout Tracks:  "Fade Away", "Sleeper", "We Formulate" JENNIFER KELLY