Walcott's sitar is respectfully articulated, ever so subtle in its reverberant twang, providing a gelatinous backbone, such as it is, for Cherry's more immediate interpretations.

From this, we get the tinny call of a clay drum and a flute hooked into every loophole, pulled to expose a more regular core.... Walcott's tabla signals the phenomenological urgency with which divine creation takes form, as if finding amid the contact of fluttering fingers along pulled skin the key to unspeakable life.

They were a plural outfit in every sense: from the fact that all of them played various instruments to their melding of styles and influences into something that transcended the sum of its parts.

Cherry's trumpet and Walcott's sitar are a pair for the ages, and find purest traction in every detail Vasconcelos provides.

Other instrumental rapports, including that between wooden flute and hammered dulcimer, keep us on our toes as we parse the album's eclectic mix of chants and whispers, while an overarching lucidity grounds even the most metaphysical moments in the immediacy of lived experience.