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A duo collaboration between wood instrument specialist Paulo Chagas and pianist Tania Giannouli, Forest Stories is a set of improvisational pieces that only give the impression of an album divided into individual songs… the album possesses a one-take presence, as if not just the music was created in the moment, but also the silences between the “songs.”  Ultimately, it’s the intimacy derived from this type of spontaneous creation that makes music like this so embraceable.

Your album personnel:  Paulo Chagas (alto & soprano saxophones, bass & sopranino clarinets, flute, bamboo flute) and Tania Giannouli (piano).

As a going concern, this is an album that effectively maintains a languid presence.  Sometimes the artists stir things up a bit, but the occasional bursts of dissonance and clashes of notes are akin to ripples in a calm pool of water.

Opening track “Step By Step” establishes that languorous tone.  Piano whispers soft words to bass clarinet when it hums a tune.  Piano murmurs placating notes to bass clarinet when it raises up and shouts.  The song ends with a dissolve into silence from which it began.

“Afternoon Forest Valse” begins with an abrasive tone.  Soprano sax brings some tea kettle steam.  Piano restricts its movements to a small area, while Chagas flutters about it.

“This Beautiful Hard Way” has Giannouli more active on piano, running up and down the length of a melody.  Chagas, now on flute, pokes its head up and speaks at effective intervals.  The beauty of this song isn’t easy to capture, yet has that unmissable quality of a glistening object in light.

“Is This Forever” and “Instead of Clouds” double back onto some territory already covered.  Piano and sax keep in-step with one another, offering thoughtful statements that just hang in the air.  Sax gets a bit querulous.  Piano grows pensive.

While most tracks have an airy motion to them, there are moments of staggered fluidity, like the sharp strikes of piano and flute shrieks of “Spring’s Chronic.”  And “In the Deepest Night” quavers with suspense and dark mystery.

The album ends with “The Way Back Home,” the closest thing to a conventional tune.  Also, the album’s prettiest moment.  A delicate melody, with expressions on sax and piano that respect the fragile state of things.  And, in that it is preceded by seven tracks of a sparse dissonance and formless geometry, the closing song is made more marvelous by the way it allows the album’s various elements to coalesce in its final moments.

Released on the Rattle Records label.

Album cover by Andreas.

Available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: MP3

This music is kaleidoscopic.  This music has a myriad of influences, each showing brief flashes before disappearing back into a perpetually shifting cycle of pattern and form.  Wanderlust, the new recording by Cliff Hines is to hear glimpses of source material without it ever truly coalescing for long enough to grab hold.  In many ways, it’s this music’s formlessness that is its most appealing characteristic.

Often when an artist attempts to fuse together disparate sounds or influences (assuming they do it well, which is no guarantee), the resulting hybrid is a singular sound all to its own.  It’s one of the most exciting traits of following artists who defy conventions and genres.  It’s a big reason why I run the Something Different review series.

The thing I find so damn compelling about this album is that it doesn’t really create a singular sound, even though Hines’s ensemble does an astoundingly adept job of blending the various music influences.  Just as a thick fog has a definitive presence yet remains forever elusive, the music of Wanderlust shimmers and floats and just can’t get nailed down.

Your album personnel:  Cliff Hines (guitar, vocals, synthesizers, guitar effects), Sasha Masakowski (vocals), Paul Thibodeaux (drums, percussion), Jasen Weaver (acoustic & electric bass), and Andrew McGowan (piano, Rhodes), and guests:  Khris Royal (alto sax), Sam Craft (violin), Jack Craft (cello), Sebastian Figueroa (Line 6 DL4), Rex Gregory (bass clarinet), Ashlin Parker (trumpet), Michael Watson (trombone), Simon Lott II (drum effects), Chris Carter (drum programming), Helen Gillet (cello), Bill Summers (percussion), Kent Jordan (flute), James Singleton (bass), Rex Gregory (bass clarinet, soprano sax), Lloyd Dillon (spoken word), Dave Easley (slide guitar), and Andrew McLean (tabla).

While there are some moments that can legitimately be called Jazz, this album more often echoes the genre-shirking music of an artist like alt-rocker Howe Gelb, who also embraces different influences and creates a drifting, ethereal singular sound.

Wanderlust opens with “Brothers.”  Electronic effects and McGowan’s Rhodes and Masakowski’s vocal harmonies coalesce into a stuttering groove that isn’t that far removed from the post-rock jittery ambiance of Radiohead.  Enchanting as hell, then Weaver and Royal enter on bass and sax with playful combinations while still interacting with the original theme… as if jazz and post-rock are shadowboxing.

“Dresden” begins with a sublime intro of cello and piano juxtaposed against radio frequencies and white noise.  Not quite avant-garde, not quite modern classical, and not quite ambient electronica, it’s a mist of cross-currents.  It leads right into the old-school jazz-rock fusion of a Mahavishnu Orchestra, with its sharp guitar edge, dramatic vocal harmonies, Thibodeaux’s frenetic bursts of percussion, and surging tempos and volume.

And this, also, transitions right into the next song without a moment of silence (a use of interludes that serves this album very well).  “Tehran” has a whiff of Middle-East music, though the imagery of deserts it conjures is more akin to the red rocks and big blue skies of the American southwest.

Several tracks, like “Interzone” and “Wanderlust,” have spoken word, accompanied by acoustic guitar and percussion hinting at folk and Latin and alt-rock.

And other tracks recall a seaside lounge vibe.  Tracks like “Aetherea” and “Lonely Moon” match warm vocals with sunny keys, the quick fills of saxes and trumpets and strings… uplifting music that grooves its way to higher elevations.  Guitar either pecks out the melody or scoops it up and takes off in flight.  Contrails of electronics and effects leave their mark in the wake of song finales.

This album has an elusive construction to it.  It builds up from track to track, not revealing a sense of album cohesion until near the very end.  It was tenth track “Clouds” when I really fell completely for this album.  For much of the recording, I felt like I was constantly playing catch-up as the music slowly wore down my preconceptions and (supposed) preferences, until I was finally enjoying this album on its own terms… even if I still wasn’t sure what those terms were.  But the interplay of Masakowski’s vocal harmonies with strings and piano, the gentle crash of drums, it was a virtual swell of sound that completely immerses the senses.  When soprano sax bursts into the mix, I was hooked.  Such an odd, compelling beauty here, enhanced further by electric guitar and effects joining in for the big finale.

The album ends with “Arjuna,” which begins with nifty intro that features slide guitarist Dave Easley (of Brian Blade’s Fellowship) and Andrew McLean’s tabla performing a clever raga.  It’s a strange interlude to lead into the pop-music that follows, but it both works and is definitely consistent with this ensemble’s approach to the music.  Vocals and keys trade bright lines.  Electric guitar leads into some nice trumpet and sax accompaniment, and there’s some hypnotic interplay between Weaver’s bass and a combination of electronic effects and Hines’s acoustic guitar.  Most attractive about the album closer is that it repeatedly builds into seemingly grand finales, just to let the floor drop off, then begin building back up to yet another one, each time different instruments joining the pop-music core of guitar and vocals.

Just thrilled with this album.  Its elusive nature is delightfully compelling, but the challenges the music presents do nothing to interfere with the simple act of sitting back and enjoying it.

This album is Self-Produced.

Music from the New Orleans scene.

Download a free 4-track demo set The Traveler EP from Hines’s Soundcloud page, courtesy of the artist.  All four tracks eventually made it onto Wanderlust, though, likely, with a slightly different production.

Available at:  eMusic | CDBaby CD&Digital | Amazon: CD | MP3

Though named after artist Jackson Pollock, this recording was created as a celebration of the beauty of free creativity.  In addition to Pollock, the trio of Marco Testoni, Nicola Alesini, and Max Di Loreto reference Marcel Duchamp, Raise the Red Lantern, and Eugenio Carmi as inspirations for the Pollock Project.  Looking back upon it, the various references are more likely to lead to premature assumptions that will fall way short of what one might presume from something called “Pollock Project.”

A mix of regional Jazz influences that incorporate Mediterranean and Nordic sounds, this strangely alluring album has an appeal that is quite unique.

Your album personnel:  Marco Testoni (caisa drums, percussion, electronics), Nicola Alesini (soprano sax, Italian folk clarinet, electronics), and Max Di Loreto (drums, percussion).

Front and center is the use of caisa drums, a member of the family of steel drums.  They have a hypnotic effect that’s tough not to fall for.  Portico Quartet gets some of that action with the use of hang drums, and Manu Delago does, too, like on his Living Rooms In London project.  Testoni unleashes that drum’s enchanting mix of haunting warmth for tremendous and gratifying results.  The first time it sincerely speaks up is on second track “Songlian,” and thus shifts expectations from an electronica & percussion heavy album to something more tranquil

But along with the Mediterranean sound, the Nordic sound is represented, mostly via Alesini’s soprano sax, which evokes echoes of Jan Garbarek’s stylings.  Third and fourth tracks “Rivoli 59” and “Una rosa mas o menos” both settle into a nice and easy stroll with drums digging into a groove, caisa drum bringing a strong melodic element to the music while remaining a percussion force, and sax chiming in with wailing and punctuated statements via interplay with hang drum.  Quite pretty.

Di Loreto’s percussion finds two ways to expressive itself.  On a track like “Chestnut C Circle,” a tune that is more atmospheric, Di Loreto’s stick work stays light, and taps a chatter that rises to the surface as eddies and curls, and acts as the binding agent between sax and caisa.  Conversely, his drums become much more audible and talkative on opening track “Unnecessary,” taking on a tribal aspect, and matching against samples of voice speaking.

There’s various use of electronics and sampling and effects.  Aside from the heavy use on the opening track, it takes a back seat to the traditional instruments for most of the remainder of the album.  Their use is neither intrusive, nor bashful.

The album ends with a rendition of Miles Davis’s “In A Silent Way.”  They tailor the composition to fit their trio structure deftly, and bring out a facet of the original that is simply beautiful.  The caisa drum fits right in with the original’s serenity, and box sax and drum capture its magical presence to a tee.  Just a lovely way to end this nifty, unusual recording.

Released on the Tre Lune Records label.

Jazz from the Rome, Italy scene.

As best as I can tell, the only place to purchase this album is from the label.