Mat Walerian’s latest Okuden project is his most ambitious yet and when you understand the sweeping, cutting-edge careers of his sidemen, you see an artist whose ambitions matches theirs.

The wicked brews that Crazy Doberman concocts are crazy good; ”Illusory Expansion’ is hard to define but very easy to like.

A meeting of artists who do not impose any rules on themselves is bound to produce music that dares to be dazzling in ways not previously heard, and that’s just what ‘Dust of Light/Ears Drawing Sounds’ by Ivo Perelman and Pascal Marzan delivers.

The real attraction of ‘Hope’ by Ross Hammond and Jay Nair is that it’s not wholly Indian music but rather a direct, innate merging of East and West with a freedom to let the music flow out on its own terms.

A global pandemic hasn’t quelled the creative fire of Ikue Mori, Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura, and their long-distance collaboration ‘Prickly Pear Cactus’ doesn’t sound at all like musicians trying to just ‘make do.’

Individually and collectively, Tim Berne’s Hardcell trio was amazing and the live souvenir ‘The Cosmos’ confirms that.

‘xFORM’ is one of the snowflakes from a David Torn/Prezens live performance that’s thankfully been captured for posterity and now, available for the public.

‘Streets of Philadelphia’ might ostensibly be about a certain American city, but it speaks more to the boundless talent and imagination of outsider guitarist and composer Nick Millevoi.

Dave Gisler’s highly improvisational trio is a natural in a live setting. Add the like-minded trumpeter Jaimie Branch to the mix, and those qualities are taken up a couple of notches.

If there was going to be anyone who could figure out how to make a tenor saxophone work with an oud and Persian percussion, that would be Ivo Perelman, with Gordon Grdina and Hamin Honari likewise finding the right roles for their respective instruments alongside a sax for the trio improv date ‘The Purity of Desire.’