This face-off between mellow mumbler Kurt Vile and guitar slinger Steve Gunn is one a series of five limited-edition split LPs; others feature Bardo Pond and Yo La Tengo, and Thurston Moore and John Maloney versus the experimental improv trio of Alan Bishop, Bill Orcutt and Chris Corsano. All have come together to celebrate US underground label Three Lobed, which has been specialising in avant-garde guitar trips for 15 years. For Vile and Gunn, that means a collection of lambent folk laments and plenty of banjo. They pleasingly refresh Randy Newman’s Pretty Boy, Nico’s 60/40 and John Prine’s country ditty Way Back Then, which leaves three original songs: Vile’s Red Apples for Tom Scharpling recalls his early track Blackberry Song, albeit with a more sardonic sneer, while NPR Reject is a beautiful, harp-entwined psych-baroque instrumental, and Gunn’s Spring Garden is a 10-minute meander through sunlit guitar and piano. Enough to make you want to start delving into that 15-year back catalogue.