It's intriguing to compare Salamon and Ollie Hirvonen (who's new album on Edition is also reviewed this issue): both are technically boggling, each hails from a north European heritage (Salamon drawing deep on his Slovenian background). Salamon has also been around much the longer, and though he's got strong American connections, Europe remains his stomping ground and this recording comes live from the Ljubljana jazz festival. As such, compared to say Hirvonen's New Helsinki, it's looser (yet more intense), ready to wrestle with doubt and improvisation in the moment (Hirvonen being more structured), and true to a jazz tradition, The Colours Suite is the music of surprise. With two drummers, but no keys, it also lives in a very different harmonic world: the drums rarely lock down together (this is no thumping Allman Brothers double attack), but instead create a rain forest rich environment of cymbal scratches and pixellating percussion against which Succi, a long-time associate of Salamon's, and Argüelles muse, meditate and occasionally make mayhem. Through it all Salamon's guitar nudges and weaves, occasionally bursting into songlike solo, but he's more a magical éminence grise, lacing the whole project together. A kaleidoscope of jazz colours indeed.