Creative jazz will always retain its capacity to surprise as long as groups like saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock's Anti-House are performing and recording. Strong Place, the ensemble's 2013 sophomore album released by Intakt, is filled with unpredictable twists and turns that keep the listener guessing, while the music nonetheless coheres through recurring motifs and the bandmembers' intuitive grasp of Laubrock's compositional and improvisational language. "An Unfolding" is aptly titled and appropriately placed as the opening track, anticipatory at the start with drawn-out lines from the leader on soprano matched by John Hébert's arco bass, the piece's harmonic development embellished by Mary Halvorson's steady guitar picking, Kris Davis' inside-the-piano explorations, and drummer Tom Rainey's percussive commentary. Slowly building tension is broken by brief, playful interludes that are suggestive but but not quite revelatory, until Laubrock, Halvorson, and Rainey break into a freewheeling improvisation, soon interrupted by Davis' full chordal attack, twinned deeply by Hébert, providing a foundation over which Laubrock solos with assertiveness and vibrancy. "Der Deichgraf" begins with Davis' skittering pianism joined by Laubrock and Halvorson's Morse code-like notes while Rainey throws in precise accents until, after a brief pause, Hébert joins the drummer in a stop-start rhythmic tandem beneath Laubrock's tenor, poised between late-night vibrato-laden rumination and something more animated. The saxophonist's extemporizations flirt thematically with the full band's herky-jerky buildup, and the piece ends as Halvorson cuts loose with a roughly distorted solo over a striding marchlike rhythm from Laubrock and Davis, nearly -- but not quite -- pulled apart by Rainey and Hébert in a looser free jazz mode.

1		An Unfolding
2		Der Deichgraf
3		Count 'Em (For Richard Foreman)
4		From Farm Girl to Fabulous, Vol. 1
5		Alley Zen
6		Strong Place (For Emanuella)
7		Cup in a Teastorm (For Henry Threadgill)
8		Here's to Love

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