Axel Krygier

A zorzal is a South American songbird, but if any analogy fits Axel Krygier's third album, it's Joseph Cornell's box art -- as you listen, you get the sense you're peering into a beautiful collection of sounds, so artfully arranged that you almost think they've always been together. There's something thrilling about the juxtapositions: post-bop piano and Afrobeat horns on "Vamos Los Gauchos!", or the classical violins, vibraphone and Kurt Weill-esque singing on the appropriately eerie "Rosebud." This is music that eats at music's usual distinctions.