Percussionist Alex Cline and the other musicians on hand (Jeff Gauthier on violin, Peggy Lee on Cello, Myra Melford on piano and harmonium, and Scott Walton on bass) bring about some well seasoned ensemble playing on Continuation, an album that springs from and speaks to the aforementioned percussionists thoughts concerning intersubjectivity and descendence.

The integration of languages, sound palettes and pitch ranges is rather close and so the players are able to move in unison, almost as though every note were another step in a complicated ancient dance. The proceedings begin with soft, intimate, at times even ruminative, movements, quiet murmurs and whistles in the background, until they shape-shift into fully fledged jazz structures, be they more song-like and lyrical or headlong and loose.

The interplay between these two approaches, accomplished through some unfailing authority, is what invests this discourse, conventional as it is, with enough surprise and challenge. A number of pieces peal with rich, delightfully textured ideas. Even when this isn't so much the case, and compositions instead sound somewhat schematic, bordering even on routine obeisance, there's never any awkwardness in them and they avoid becoming makeweights on the work as a whole.

Instead, everything is crisp, ripe and blithe enough to open the way for something else. This society of sound thus clearly builds itself up into exhausted stasis, whereupon it consistently, and seemingly quite easily, recovers its momentum and assumes, confirms, extends and alters the urgent grace at its core.

Alex Cline: Continuation Is On Sale at Squidco!