Nels Cline's lightning-storm guitar soloing in one of America's finest rock bands, Wilco, has seen his renown eclipse that of his twin brother and frequent collaborator Alex, who stayed behind in California, forging a quieter reputation as drummer and percussionist. This near two-hour composition for 2015's Angel City Jazz Festival, quickly captured afterwards in the studio, declares the lesser-known twin's Buddhist spirituality with complex conviction and meditative power. Egoless as his faith may teach him to be, it confirms this Cline's stature. Composed in tribute to his ailing teacher Thich Nhat Hanh's 90th birthday, Hanh's poems and excerpts from the epic Avatamsaka Sutra are sung by Areni Agbabian (who's worked with Tigran Hamasyan) with a limpid beauty which slips inside the words. Cline's striking of a temple bell is the ceremonial doorway between pieces. Asian string instruments shiver and whisper, clamour and sigh, intertwined with Agbabian's rippling vocal music. But the diversity of these 10 pieces for a 13-piece band across two CDs (this is a lavish, boxed release) don't settle for an ambient, edgeless, snoozy utopia. Nels Cline and G.E. Stinson are on hand to contribute primordial, jungle-land feedback, and soaring rock solos. Wayne Peet's heavy Hammond riffing on the driving funk-fusion of ‘The Incalculable’ will also wake you from your trance. But then there are breath-slowing chimes, and mantric percussion from the composer. This is devotional, supplicant's music of committed, rewarding ambition.