Bob Blumenthal's sleeve notes make the point that this 50-minute sequence of vignettes and miniatures from Ran Blake exudes the same brand of creative clarity and ‘unsparing honesty’ that we associate with Raymond Carver, the American short-story writer who found undercurrents of surreal delight by salami-slicing reality – and I know exactly where he's coming from. Blake intersperses a smattering of standards – Ellington's ‘Something To Live For’ and ‘Mood Indigo’, Cole Porter's ‘Get Out Of Town’, Mingus' ‘Eclipse’, Dizzy's ‘Night In Tunisia’ – around aphoristic originals. Four different perspectives on the same pool of material that constitute the ‘Enigma Suite’, for which he's joined by the microtonally nimble clarinettist Guillermo Gregorio, are mixed and matched against five duos with guitarist David ‘Knife’ Fabris whose incongruously smooth chug is far less to my taste. But Blake's knack of telling an entirely familiar story, like ‘Mood Indigo’ or ‘Night In Tunisia’, while filling the narrative with previously unwalked digressions is unfailingly captivating. The word, I think, is ‘pantonal’. No matter what chord Blake plays, all other keys and harmonic pathways feel open to him. ‘Mood Indigo’ is transformed into Mingus-like weird nightmare expressionism; Mingus' ‘Eclipse’ is completely overhauled with bizarre shifts of mood and pockmarked with melodic holes. Unlike Raymond Carver, Blake has precisely zero aptitude for whimsy or a GSOH and occasionally the relentless intensity borders on self-obsession. What a vision though – and what playing!