There is a certain unaffected dignity about this swift follow-up to the trio's earlier outing, The River of Anyder. Battaglia is joined here once again by Maiore, uncannily channelling Eberhard Weber at times and tasteful drummer Dani, the youngest member of the trio. It's Battaglia's fifth album as a leader for the label having switched from his early classical career playing early music and the baroque. The Milan-born virtuoso manages to merge a resourcefully contemplative improvising style with a sparkling joyous side, say on a track such as ‘Babel Hymn’ at the end, so it's like the coming together of Keith Jarrett and Danilo Pérez's combined playing styles. The most significant of his compositions is the long ‘Euphonia Elegy’, full of big dramatic statements that do not seem at all overblown. With references in song titles to Homer, Jonathan Swift, Italo Calvino (the title track), Charles Fourier, Adalbert Stifter, Edgar Allan Poe, the surrealism of René Daumal, and Alfred Kubin, not forgetting the Bible, that's quite an extensive reading list to be going on with. The trio has reached a tipping point in terms of group empathy, and on a more experimental track such as the opening of ‘Perla’ both Maiore and Dani show uncanny poise.