As a vocalist, Julie Tippett is literally without peer and cannot be compared to anyone. She is a true original. Perhaps this is because of her background, which began in the '60s with Brian Auger, when she was singing soul and R&B. Entering the progressive rock world of the 1970s with compatriots like saxophonist Elton Dean (and, of course, pianist Keith Tippett), her concerns, approach to singing, and methodology as a vocalist began her process of mutation into the artist she is today. It is perhaps because of her earlier training that Tippett is able to travel so far afield in her explorations. She understands and can execute the minutiae in each element of music she incorporates into her oeuvre. Drummer Willi Kellers is largely unknown in the States, yet is an in-demand session player for many Euro jazzers and improvisers. He has been playing with Julie Tippett and Keith Tippett steadily since the 1980s. Keith Tippett, of course, is a now legendary jazz pianist who embraced free and improvisational music in the late '60s, and has stubbornly forged his own path through the morass of jazz culture since then. Twilight Etchings was recorded during the October 1993 Total Music Meeting at the Podewil in Berlin. The set is comprised of five selections, the shortest of which (over ten minutes in length) is a stunner. While Tippett and Kellers are no doubt master musicians -- perhaps even greater than they appear by being able to support a vocalist like this in total improvisation -- it is Julie Tippett who confounds, shocks, bewilders, and ultimately inspires the listener here. Her music -- and this is clearly her music -- comes out of the desire to speak, to enter language, and to communicate from the deepest recesses of the human spirit. And enter language it does, with every device at her command. In fact, singing of this type -- it is the purest kind of singing -- is nothing less than a shamanistic exercise: journeying for the sake of discovery. This would also explain the titles of the tracks included here, mediations on nature and mysticism and their interrelation: Pebbled Rain, Song of the Desert Cactus, The Masked Procession, The Curious Coyote, Dance of the Salamanders. This is not to say that Keith Tippett and Willi Kellers aren't essential to the exercise; they are. On Song of the Desert Cactus, Tippett's piano solo spaces out chords over a ten-finger reach, pronouncing the sevenths and thirds over a minor-key backdrop, as Kellers double times him on the tops of his cymbals, walking to Tippett's deliberate crawl. Julie Tippett eventually re-enters first with a whistle, then a breathy whisper, and finally a moan so deep and long it seems to come from inside time itself. Rhythms from the entire trio alternate, doubling, tripling, and slowing each other, stacking up like chants led by Julie Tippett until the track finally soars off weightless and free.

1		Pebbled Rain
2		Song of the Desert Cactus
3		The Masked Procession
4		The Curious Coyote
5		Dance of the Salamanders