An extremely curious group collaboration/improvisation. The basic tracks for the five pieces were composed by Al Margolis, and then the other musicians created their own parts in the studio. The first piece, "Mal Air," has an exotica quality about it, with wordless, pensive vocals (somewhat reminiscent of
Yma Sumac) by Ellen Christi, random-drums-in-the-distance percussion by Kevin Sparke, an intoning bass clarinet played by Brian Charles, and long synthesizer melodies by Margolis. "Ellensbirds" continues the mood with jungle noises and other wonderful vocalizations which are sampled and expanded electronically. "Pi Equals Sinbad" uses the voices of both Christi and Charles with Margolis creating atmospheric sounds on the piano board, with cymbals and tapes of electronic sounds. "Debtetc" is a spare but very effective tone poem, like a mobile with elements (long soprano sax calls, cello scrappings, etc.) occuring on very long cycles. The concluding piece "Flute Thang" uses a dense delay of sampled flute sounds sync-ed with deep bass hums and rich layers of vocal and soprano sax sounds. ~ "Blue" Gene Tyranny