This disc unites works by two distinctly original American composers who, while maintaining their own identities, share many similarities. To begin with, both men live on the West Coast: Alan Hovhaness in Seattle, Lou Harrison just outside Santa Cruz, California.

This is more than an accident of geography: the Eastern seaboard has been the traditional centre of American musical life and both Hovhaness and Harrison are, to a degree, outsiders. Yet such is the appeal of their work that they have brought the musical mainstream to them rather than bending their aesthetics to public or professional taste.