When two musical companions and friends release an album titled Who We Are after almost three decades of collaboration, it's more than a name – it's a statement. With this album, singer Viktoria Tolstoy and pianist and keyboardist Jacob Karlzon present a kind of musical self-portrait: the sum of shared experiences, mutual trust and an artistic language that can only be created when two people vibrate on the same frequency for years.

The couple's journey began in the mid-1990s during a UK tour by Tolstoy. Since then, they have played together again and again and recorded six albums, most recently Letter To Herbie in 2011 - a bow to their mutual idol Herbie Hancock. And A Moment of Now in 2013, her first, highly acclaimed duo recording. Through the close, decades-long collaboration, both have reached a point where they no longer have to reinvent their story – they just have to tell it.

"Between Viktoria and I there is no separation between soloist and accompanist, we are simply two soul mates at eye level," says Karlzon. This close communication is the foundation of the album – and perhaps the most precise answer to the title: Who We Are is a State. An agreement. A musical 'we'.