This 1978 session headlined by the little-known Danish pianist
Max Leth bears few if any of the hallmarks of its era, instead evoking the modern European jazz aesthetic of the previous decade. What's most unusual, however, is the record's sound. Despite the quartet's conventional piano/guitar/bass/drums formula, the arrangements at times seem at war with themselves, pulled in opposite directions by
Leth's forceful keys, Ole Molin's cerebral guitar and the funky, dynamic rhythms of bassist
Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and drummer Bjarne Rostvold. It's the kind of record that sounds better with each passing year, because its origins and points of comparison become that much more remote -- familiar melodies like "Just You Just Me," "On the Sunny Side," and "Besame Mucho" have never sounded more alien or compelling. ~ Jason Ankeny