Into the Wind

by Bei Bei & Shawn Lee

I picked up this album on the strength of Shawn Lee's two collaborations with Clutchy Hopkins, both of which I enjoyed, and on the strength of the Ubiquity label, which has been pumping out some nice music lately.

This time around, Lee collaborates with Bei Bei, who plays the Guzheng, a Chinese string instrument that is about 2000 years old.  Working together, they create what the folks at Ubiquity call an "uplifting, genre-bending sound clash, [which] recalls the afro centric [sic] harping of Dorothy Ashby and hypnotic spiritual jazz of Alice Coltrane."

The music does move all over the map, from what sounds like traditional Chinese music with a nice ambient beat, to more straight-up R'n'B, or funk.  Lee provides vocals in places, and two tracks feature the always amazing Georgia Anne Muldrow, who herself has recently released work with this label. 

Into the Wind lacks the weirdness of a Clutchy Hopkins disk, but instead focuses on lovely pieces of music.  A very nice album.