A long-time Berlin resident, the pianist-composer Aki Takase went into a Budapest recording studio with new band Japanic for her 70th birthday celebrations last year. Aside from her numerous high-profile collaborations over four decades that includes leading figures such as David Murray and Alexander von Schlippenbach, she has also recorded tribute albums to jazz legends among them Fats Waller, Eric Dolphy Ornette Coleman and Thelonious Monk. Thema Prima isn't a tribute as such, but she dedicates it to a hero of hers, this time from the classical world, the contemporary composer Conlon Nancarrow. But the recording certainly doesn't belong to any specific musical genre. As a skilled and experienced improviser-composer, Takase draws from an expansive vocabulary to create a unique kaleidoscope without ever randomly mashing genres together. It's a heady but playful mix of clanging, virtuosic piano mantras, rockin' band riffs, melody indebted to oriental, Balkan folk music through to progressive bop, and Mingus-ish free collective jazz. Japanic is a young-ish generation German-Norwegian quartet with saxophonist Erdmann particularly impressive throughout. The addition of DJ Illvibe is a plus too; his rap-influenced turntablism and real-time jolts of electronica are perfectly and unpredictably tuned into the acoustic setting.