In presenting an “exploration into time and history” to her listeners, Fiona Joy Hawkins employs a broad, global array of instruments and an all-star roster of contemporary instrumental talent. Will Ackerman (who also produced the disc), Philip Aaberg, Eugue Friesen, Todd Boston, Tony Levin, Charlie Bisharat and others accompany Hawkins, who steers the voyage from behind a handcrafted Australian piano. Celtic influences weave through most of the work, but all the world flavors come through clearly, courtesy of flutes, whistles, strings, didgeridoo, a shaman’s dream’s worth of percussion, woodwinds, and guitars from just about every point on the planet. These 12 tracks are washed through with equal parts melancholy and romance; they are vivid, heartfelt songs full of imagery and emotion. Hawkins’ piano playing is elegant as always; the sound of the Stuart & Sons piano she plays is rich and full, gently taking command of the ensemble but making sure each contributor shines through in the parts. When it plays alone, as on “Earthbound,” or more lightly accompanied, as on “Forgiveness” where Paul Jarman softly lays in lines from a Chinese bawu, the instrument’s simple beauty and soul-touching resonance is highlighted. But it’s the ensemble pieces that set your spirit flying here. I particularly like the tracks that heavily feature the strings, so I’m in heaven when Hawkins is surrounded by violinist Rebecca Daniels, Dave Ellis’s double bass, and deep cello from longtime Paul Winter Consort member Eugene Friesen on “Antarctica” and again on “Ancient Albatross.” I like the way “Running On Joy” appropriately alters the mood, swinging into an uptempo space. Michael Jackson barks out didge notes while Levin and Ackerman take double duty on bass guitar.  Heather Rankin’s vocals here are smooth as silk and sweet as sugar. (Dear Athletic Footwear Companies: Here is the music for your next commercial.)

600 Years in a Moment is a breathtaking New Age-style album that will surely end up topping every Best Of list in that genre this year. With Ackerman handling the production, the sound is flawless. This is a vibrant, breathing album that’s the perfect accompaniment for every sunset or quiet evening. It flows seamlessly, shuffles itself nicely, and finds a new way to move you with each song. A genuinely brilliant work.

Available from Fiona Joy Hawkins’ web site.

On his quick-hit debut, Bronsense (aka Bron Halpin) churns out five minimalist experimental electronic pieces. The sense is of a guy and his gear creating in the moment, of the twisting of knobs and tapping of laptops, of giving genesis to odd sounds and tying them together. In spots, it’s cacophonous. In others, it comes across as comparatively more thought out–even if it’s still a bit jangly and odd.  The first track, “Introducing,” isn’t truly representative of what follows. It’s 50 seconds of garble, basically. But then Halpin kicks into the first of two long tracks (“long,” at seven minutes, being a relative term) and shows what this is really about. Resonant bass tones, long droning pads and endlessly looping samples blend with a wide selection of electronic squawk, and the mess takes on its own distinct groove. Further along, “Taps” wraps the listener in swirling drones in Bronsense’s closest approximation of an ambient piece. “Xmas Pud,” the other long piece, is a warped landscape carved out of distorted vocal samples and more random electro-clatter. Again we get something that’s a bit crazed, bordering on random, but which works itself into a hypnotic form with the essence of a catchy hook. Odd but effective. On the other side, there are those more noise-oriented things that don’t resolve themselves quite as satisfactorily, like “Plucks,” which wanders aimlessly by over the course of two minutes. It’s a bit like watching a drunk guy stumble down your street. Or the even shorter “Freak Out,” which simply lives up to its name and, really, seems to only exist to fill up two minutes. Luckily, these are the exception rather than the rule. Bronsense is never entirely accessible, and it’s firmly tethered to its experimental mindset, but given a chance, its weirdness and noisiness can work themselves into a pretty interesting listen. Not for everyone, but it will probably surprise a lot of people.

Available from Bandcamp.

I will be honest: the tangly, jittery, avant-garde “fanfare in an unconventional tuning” that opens Music for Michael Skrtic almost had me running for cover. Here, obviously, was another of those albums that make me feel that I don’t understand the first thing about contemporary composition. Luckily, this was about as far afield as Tom DePlonty gets on his latest release and the five remaining tracks, while employing some interesting sound-sources and built on somewhat experimental structural choices, feel more approachable. Coming out of that first track, DePlonty heads in the extreme opposite direction with “La Petit Sonnerie.” Barely audible at first and never raising above a whisper, these stretched and looped recordings of “harmonics and other mostly unconventional sounds” from the piano form a graceful drone. At eight minutes it’s the longest track here, and it’s eight fully meditative minutes. I find myself turning the volume up in order to more fully catch the slow shifts and light layering at play. And I’ll be a nice reviewer and warn you that you will jump when “On A Phrase by Brahms” leaps out of the closet at you while you’re still in your Sonnerie reverie. Backwards samples spin into a hypnotic wash. Spatial processing toward the end gives it a slightly vertiginous edge. “Flame Hand,” with just three instruments, presents a hushed palate-cleanser of sound, a surprisingly simple piece of work amidst the more challenging thoughts. “Letter and Word” churns dreamily toward the closing track, “La Grande Sonnerie,” where DePlonty creates a musical visual of the inner workings of a watch, “gears of different sizes, spinning in different directions at different speeds.” Here he heads back into more a complicated structure of intersecting tones and rhythms, recalling the first track in its glitter and clatter but possessing a more controlled character. Though the piano lines swirl around your head, there’s more of a sense of them all heading in a similar direction, the interdependency of precision clockwork.

Music for Michael Skrtic is inspired by the surrealist painting, by Mr. Skrtic, shown on its cover. Appropriately, the music here skips through several dreamscape-style concepts, taking those random-yet-connected leaps of thought our subconscious mind is prone to. DePlonty advises on his site that there are connective threads running throughout; of this I have no doubt, though it would take a more compositon-oriented mind than mine to tell you what they are. As a casual listener, once I’m past that first track (and I’ve gotten more used to it), I find the diversity of this release very engaging. DePlonty always has interesting things to say in his music, and I am always willing to listen–even if I can be a little tentative at first.

Available from Camerata.