Sages of various persuasions have probably been giving their pet names to the dialectics of intuition and rationality from the Enlightenment onwards – the German-born, New York-resident guitarist/composer Sebastian Noelle takes his fourth album's title from Nobel-prizewinning economist Daniel Kahneman's labels for them, System One and System Two. Noelle's downtown dream-team partners here could hardly be better qualified to cross the conscious/unconscious bridge, given virtuoso pianist Matt Mitchell's freewheeling associations with Tim Berne and Dave Douglas, bassist Chris Tordini's with Steve Lehman and Tyshawn Sorey, and drummer Dan Weiss's with Chris Potter and Rudresh Mahanthappa. But though the quality of the players is awesome, and Noelle's cultural references and gigging experience (notably Darcy James Argue's Secret Society) are considerable, the upshot has some tame episodes alongside vibrant ones. Noelle is fascinated by shapeshifting and ambiguity, and some of this session's best moments are suspended over such steep drops. The opening 'Uncanny Valley' spotlights the irrepressible Mitchell, streaming off an asymmetrical bass vamp and restlessly rattly drumming, before Noelle's more reflective solo; while the slow-swaying 'Kaonashi' (inspired by Japanese Studio Ghibli animator Hayao Miyazaki) and 'Winter Boat' foreground the guitarist's slow-burn lyricism, and the throbbing groove of 'Northern Dispensary' and the dancing melody of the Hindustani-influenced 'Shubho' offer some of the set's most engagingly hooky themes. But the talented Noelle might have distracted himself with extra-musical ideas here, rather than letting this terrific band just have its head and take him with it.