DunkelPek: Fire's Hush

The inventive band DunkelPek consists of Tokyo-born and New York-based percussionist Nava Dunkelman and Canadian American guitarist Jakob Pek. Pek, who lives in Berkeley California, is also an accomplished painter. Perhaps because of Pek's visual artistry, the group's third release, the mesmerizing Fire's Hush, is made up of eight abstract and dynamic sonic images.

"Inverse Ontologies," for example, opens with resonant beats and darkly hued chimes and strums. Wave after wave of refrains build a captivating ambience. A delightfully wild musical picture emerges that, at its core, has a somber quietude.

Elsewhere, "Threshold," is equally contemplative but with slightly brighter hues, almost like a pagan ritual at dawn. The flecks of lighter tones pepper the solemn, ethereal backdrop. Dunkelman's sparse booms give the piece a dramatic edge. As the performance evolves it takes on a muted vibrancy with luminous notes alternating with inkier ones.

"Ode to a Dream" is the most angular track but emits an understated spirituality. Reverberating tones and cascading chimes shimmy around silent pauses then gradually become insistent and rhythmic. The impressionistic tune has an exalted Zen serenity especially with the playful intertwining of strums and mallet strikes.

Perhaps the most haunting of all the tracks is "無," a Japanese Kanji character meaning "nothing." The percussion's hollow booming and the guitar's moaning tones establish a tense mood. The gallop of the drums that ends up in thrilling polyrhythms, together with the intriguingly treated strings, builds hypnotic vamps.

On their first studio album, Dunkelman and Pek play their instruments with panache. Their approach to music, although experimental, results in fully formed, genre-defying works that are cohesive and bristle with spontaneity and alluring lyricism.

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