The 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic play tangos: you just know it’s going to sound gorgeous, and it does. Jump straight in on track 7, Piazzolla’s Pedro y Pedro arranged (like most of the pieces here) by one of the players, David Riniker. Massed cellos swooning in close harmony, sweet as molasses and recorded in warm sound. Isn’t that exactly what you’d want from a disc like this? No question, but over 68 minutes? No fear: skip forwards to the title track, Harold Noben’s eight-minute transcription of Buenos Aires hora cero. It’s like something by Ligeti: a fantastic nocturnal tone poem of whispered sul ponticello scratching and rustling – and is that a distant police siren?

If it was nothing else, this disc would be a spectacular demonstration of the sounds and colours that 12 cellos can produce in the hands of players of this calibre. From whistling harmonics to rhythms tapped out on the wood of the instruments, there’s hardly a technique that isn’t deployed here, in the service of music that has apparently become something of a passion for the 12 Cellists. Piazzolla predominates, and there’s a good sprinkling of standards – Lunfardo, Libertango, Decarísimo – but it’s far from a hackneyed selection, and lighter numbers by less familiar tangueros break up the sheer intensity of unrelieved Piazzolla.

It’s all done with love, rhythmic flair and stellar virtuosity: listen to the devil-may-care swing with which Bruno Delepelaire skitters over his specially written solos in Tres Minutos con la Realidad. If I’ve a reservation, it’s that maybe an Oblivion or an Adiós Nonino would have been nice – there’s so much rhythmic energy in these pieces that the Cellists never quite stretch out and sing. Otherwise: wow.