Irrepressible Leo Records continues to fight against the restrictions of music and COVID with a handful of new releases.
Juan Saiz plays flute and tenor sax with a team of Marco Mezuida/p, Manel Fortia/b and Genis Bages/dr on ten intuitive originals. His flute is lovely with Mezquida on “Aurora” and impressionistic teamed with Bages’ mallets on “Bellaskos”, changing moods and angles on the kinetic “Pindio”. His tenor is dark and relaxed on ”El Grito” and dramatically modal for “Index Librorum Prohi- 
bitorum”. The melodies and themes never get lost in the woods, making the music both expressive and accessible.
Sergio Armaroli plays vibes, prepared vibes and gongs underneath the various speeches delivered by Steve Day. There are a handful of purely instrumental tracks that are unencumbered by the vocal distractions of various rants, such as the hard hitting “After Before Words”, the resonant “This Meal of Music” and echoing “Day’s Word (In The Night)” along with an Eno-ish “ElectroIntro”. Day’s deliveries are a mix of stentorian poetry and bohemian rants. Wasn’t there a hymn entitled “I’ll Be Glad When Day Is Done”?
Fabian Neubaure plays piano, Wurlitzer and electronics, along with bassist Duy Luong doubling on electronics and drummer Pablo Liebhaber for eight songs that make up a kind of suite. The three part “Faces” includes plodding piano, strumming bass and disparate spaces between ivories. The title piece has Luong leading into some angular percussion while his bow is dreamy on “Scirocco”. The team gets Monkish on the bopping “Somewhere” and spacious on “Metamorphosis/Reprise”, making for a series of ruminations more than stories.
Josh Sinton plays baritone sax, alto flute and bass clarinet teamed with pianist Jed Wilson and drummer Tony Falco for six originals. Sinton’s flute works well with the subdued mallets on the dreamy“2” and the restless “5”. A loose vibrato on the bass clarinet gets deep on “6” with the bari lush on “1”. Deep reeds to walk through.