Fans of the late Butch Morris' approach to ensemble improvisation will find much to pore over here. ‘Conduction’ – as Morris dubbed it – was a method of spontaneously ordering and reordering music on the fly with a series of hand signals, often by chopping and changing an arrangement in mid-performance or grouping and regrouping combinations of instruments – all this in addition to the usual conductor's chores of controlling tempo and dynamics, cueing ensembles and solos and generally acting as cheerleader. The results, as might be imagined, could be a train-wreck or uniquely spontaneous creativity but more often a ramshackle combination of both. Of course with free episodes the train wreck bit is easier to gloss over than with formal interpretations of a written arrangement, but in theory it was one way of approaching the freedom principal. Horvitz, who was mentored by Morris, as well as working with John Zorn on his ‘Game’ concept pieces, brought these methods to bear in an ensemble he leads at Seattle's Royal Room with a band of local improvisers. There is often a Zorn-like jump-cut feel to some of these pieces, most of which have the occasional iffy bits, as Horvitz goes about building his musical houses of cards that seem about to collapse at any moment. Perhaps it's this internal tension of this high-risk music making that makes it compelling for the participants, but whether this translates into something for the listener is moot. Freer inclined performances are best witnessed live and attempts to bottle it by way of a recording seldom work since, dislocated from the performance context, they seem robbed of essential meaning.