Pith Balls and Inclined Planes is mostly Jeff Kaiser's project (he's even responsible for the CD's design). The Californian trumpeter teamed up with Ernesto Diaz-Infante to improvise the material he later manipulated in studio. Diaz-Infante performs on prepared guitar (acoustic) (which takes him far away from his solo piano albums such as Ucross Journal). The eight pieces presented on this CD use any or all of the following: trumpet, guitar, electronics. All three are used on the opener My Machines Came from Too Far Away: after an electro-acoustic introduction, the guitar lays down some flooring for Kaiser's Miles Davis-like cool jazz melody on heavily-treated muted trumpet. Very nice. Once (And It Was Not Yesterday) (dedicated to Conlon Nancarrow) is an interesting piece of musique concrete using as a sound source sped-up samples from Diaz-Infante's solo piano recording Solus. A couple of tracks let the two musicians improvise without electronics, so the listener can hear how they actually interact with each other - the maniacal Outside, Three Tennis Courts is very conclusive for that matter. Each musician has a solo spot (although Diaz-Infante's has electronics added). The closing number Suppose a Black Thread makes a beautiful finale with backward guitar notes, prepared guitar overtones and another cool jazz-inspired muted trumpet line which takes us back where we started.

1		My Machines Came from Too Far Away
2		Once (And It Was Not Yesterday)
3		Punydemigods on Stilts
4		The Unreaonable Power of the Diagrams
5		Fearful of Contagion
6		She Surreptitiously Introduced Colored Shirts
7		Outside, Three Tennis Courts
8		Suppose a Black Thread