“Hey, here's an idea: let's play that great number of yours on an old, out-of-tune tack piano!” If you were an emerging composer of note, would you take that as a compliment? Of course you would – at least you would if the band members addressing you included Dayna Stephens and Brad Mehldau. And indeed, the sonorously tinny piano discovered in a Rhinebeck, New York recording studio adds nicely to the old-world charm of Julian Lage's ‘Woodside Waltz’. The players even retuned their instruments so that Mehldau could sit down to massage sounds out of the tack piano, its authentic neglected glory intact. The overall mood of the set is summed up by Stephens, who explains: “When we recorded these songs I was conflictingly full of hope, peace and uncertainty.” That can be a difficult mixture of feelings to live with, as Stephens had to as he battled a rare kidney disease, but it's a combination that's beautifully channelled in this gentle and engaging collection which has something of the character of sounds captured between waking and sleeping. Most of the songs are covers – “they all have to my ear enchanting, beautiful singable melodies,” says Stephens – though the main man provides one original, ‘The Timbre of Gratitude’, that being the emotion he wanted most to express on this dreamily delightful album.