IMITATION OF LIFE

Many in the west will come to this album through its association with Jim O'Rourke, Chicago-born, now Tokyo-based arch-collaborator with artists as diverse as Joanna Newsom, Wilco and Sonic Youth. Singer-songwriter Eiko Ishibashi is in his band (and he is in hers), and this record bears many O'Rourke hallmarks: a loose jazz feel, plenty of space between the guitars, flutes and vibraphones, a commitment to prettiness, and no great sense of its own difficulty, despite coming out of the international improv scene. Ishibashi is a delicate and precise singer, as well as an engaged multi-instrumentalist, and the whole seven-track confection feels at once deep (the tracklisting includes Resurrection and Fugitive) and light. (www.theguardian.com)