Inner Spaces

The latest release from Iraqi-American trumpeter, santur player and vocalist Amir ElSaffar and composer and sound artist Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch, Inner Spaces is a mercurial slice of ambient jazz that finds the long-time collaborators back, and using an Iraqi maqam as the jumping off point for an engrossing, excitable dialogue. The album is divided into four extended pieces. Opener ‘River’ is slow and weighty – a bass drone backwash from which ElSaffar’s keening vocals emerge, folded in misty distortion and gossamer synths. ‘Spirits’ gives ElSaffar’s trumpet the spotlight, playing a snaking maqam melody over Hoesch’s gentle accompaniment before the musicians pivot – Hoesch’s programmed percussion beating a traditional 10/16 jourjina rhythm, while ElSaffar heads off on a restless solo. ‘Pas de Deux’ hears synths enveloping santur passages as the music builds to a seraphic high while ‘Tahlila’ drags us into the depths, dissolving into screeching horns and electrical hiss.