Despite the excellence of his trio work solo piano is a format in which Craig Taborn has thrived in what is turning out to be an illustrious career. 2011‘s Avenging Angel set the bar yet high and this new offering maintains the sense of invention and challenge the artist poses to himself and listeners. The adventures take many different forms. Taborn invariably makes pieces unfold without clear ‘sectional’ marking so that changes of atmosphere as well as structure can be disarming and exciting. There is a fluid quality to the material here as if a rhythmic line was a succession of waves rushing back and forth that blend into brilliantly distilled, pared-down motifs that have contrastingly rugged, physical timbres, like a rock emerging from water. Sometimes Reichian repetitions are set against melancholic, slow melodic bass lines that have an enormous emotional weight, as one note at a time drops into misty, cavernous spaces.

However, the tension is also created by very controlled shifts in volume as well as harmony, and if stillness, composure, restraint and omission are crucial to the endeavour then Taborn also fashions some daringly muscular, staccato grooves. They are sometimes radar-like blips in the mid-range that are effectively juxtaposed with darting rhythmic activity in the upper register. Several of his predecessors, notably Andrew Hill, Don Pullen and the often overlooked Anthony Davis also had similar qualities, but there is a distinctive dark-light texture and feel in Taborn’s work that have given him his signes particuliers. Some of these pieces feel longer than they are because of their attention to detail as well as breathing space, but they are above all works that defy categorisation. And all the stylistic range and deeply personal synthesis of many musical histories conspire to make Craig Taborn a very unique 21st century artist.