Christopher Bono is the architect of NOUS, a collection of artists who got together for a week of recording at Dreamland Studios and banged out three albums worth of material. This is album #2 (duh).

NOUS NOUS II (Our Silent Canvas)

The press notes call this "experimental," but that's misleading. For starters, these pieces are extraordinarily accessible, easily appreciated by ten year olds whose musical experience doesn't go much past Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande. They're not poppy, they're not jazz, they're not electronic (well, not really), they're not ambient. Except, of course, when they are.

Bono "wrote" these pieces, but his technique comes from jazz. He gave his musicians progressions and let them figure out the rest. With the basic foundation firm, the group found itself free to explore. And since most of the these musicians have classical or jazz backgrounds (no matter their more recent experience), these explorations are grounded in the base.

I have a son who composes music on the fly. He just sits down and, more often than not, something amazing happens. He's still learning how to turn his flights of fancy into something more solid, and my experience listening to him makes me constantly impressed by those who can improvise into structure. NOUS isn't any one (or any five) things. It is NOUS. And that's more than good enough.

Jon Worley