Hold your breath until you're Blue in the face and Finnegans Wake would still probably not arrive in your town to perform music from their fifth album, released by the Italian AltrOck label in late 2008. They would simply have too many geographical and logistical challenges to surmount. Consider the ensemble circa Blue: a Belgian bandleader and multi-instrumentalist living in Brazil; Brazilian flute and keyboard players; a band co-founder and bassist residing in Belgium; and a German lyricist/poetess who doesn't sing or play anything here, but is considered a full-fledged member nonetheless -- unlike the clutch of additional Brazilian musicians who play electric guitar, drums, violin, cello, oboe, and trumpet and who are merely guests. A Brazilian classical soprano vocalist is also here, singing in German, and some Belgian and Swedish avant rock heavyweights appear on a bonus track. The musical results are more coherent than one might imagine, because although some of the musicians are an ocean apart, they all seem to be on the same page -- one written by Belgium-to-Brazil immigrant Henry Krutzen, who has composition and arrangement credits for everything (sharing such credits with keyboardist Marcílio Onofre on five tracks). Krutzen writes complex pieces with emphatic melodies and themes; strong foundations of electric instrumentation and drums with lighter acoustic instruments layered through the mix; and oftentimes a sense of groove allowing guest drummer Rogério Pitomba to drive things along crisply and cleanly. The title track bridges groove-based and classical impulses with stop-start rhythms, electronic keyboard underpinnings recalling the sequencer-heavy days of Tangerine Dream, a nearly romantic midpoint interlude, and the wide-ranging palette that the diverse acoustic instrumentation is capable of bringing.

1		Honfleur la Jolie
2		Die Geste von Kreuzlingen
3		Mida
4		Luftspiel
5		Blue
6		Ents and Things
7		Magical Cave
8		The Battle of Novgorod
9		Vulnavia
10		Agakuk

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