January 12, 1998
	Park West    Chicago, IL, USA

Improvscapes   February 15, 2011
Written by Otohiko

This is a record I’ve been coming back to often over the last few months, largely because it’s so free-flowing and exploratory. There is a lot of long, sorrowful sweeps here, but they’re not intense - they come and go at leisure, and Robert does his share at convincing the audience relax and take it as a natural background to whatever they’re doing. The result is music that doesn’t hurry to say anything directly, instead winding its way through textures and harmonies freely. For poignancy and power, you may be best advised to look elsewhere in soundscapes, but if you just want to hear Robert happily at work in an improv setting, you can’t do much better than this. Oh, and the Q&A, along with Robert’s rather amusing introduction (which actually comes almost a third of the way through the performance) are a fun bonus - the guitarist is seems to be in good spirits and the audience likewise shows lots of respect. This is probably a unique recording if you are interested in soundscapes recorded with responsive audience - on other releases, this response is usually omitted. Here, meanwhile, you can definitely get a glimpse at what was definitely a very interactive and productive evening.

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