Sometimes it's possible to know too much about a recording. If you make the mistake of looking at various promotional materials for The Free Zen Society, you'll get an only partially cohesive picture as the how this music was formed. There's something about the group (Matthew Shipp on piano, William Parker/bass and Zeena Parkins on harp) getting together for a session, taking direction from a few "graphic indicators" that had been discussed only only by Shipp and Thirsty Ear honcho Peter Gordon. Then the tapes were shelved for number of years until Gordon opens the box of Pandora, employing keyboards and mad editing skills to pull off the impossible. Or something.

Of course, none of this is really relevant. Just as I don't normally care about time signatures, key, and whatnot, the history of the record shouldn't matter either (unless it's a particularly interesting one). The focus of a review should be the music itself, right? Well, given the story of The Free Zen Society's birth and construction, I've decided to consider it a kind of process music. Or something.

"Lightly Dropping" opens with some foreboding synth washes that give way to a series of overlayed and interlocking arpeggios that cycle between Parkins, then Parker, then Shipp. A few minutes in and Shipp's piano takes over to continue the storytelling while the electronics traverse the landscapes of both the foreground and background. Parkins take a similar turn before the song ends with a single, reverberant synthesizer tone.

A slightly different approach is taken on "Thought Free", where musical thoughts are at first passed around in a circle — a line of piano tones, extended by the harp and then the bass. After this introduction, an ostinato is set up by Parker over which the keyboards float. But then the harp is left alone, attempting to further comment on what's been constructed so far. Shipp comes in to repeat the process.

Not all Free Zen Society compositions are shared affairs (though all do have some level of added electronics). Shipp's piano stands alone on "Dream Escapes" while Parker builds a fine and introspective bowed bass suite during "Surrender." Parkins is given the spotlight on "Glistening," which is full of arpeggios and single notes allowed to ring out to infinity.

Some might think that Peter Gordon's "construction" of this music is somehow invalid, since the process wasn't completely organic. But if you give a listen to the recent We All Love Ennio Morricone, you'll discover that Morricone actually composed music linking together versions of his own music from artists as disparate as Bruce Springsteen and Andrea Bocelli. The point is that music is often quietly telling its own story, one that will avail itself to those willing to listen. So just maybe Peter Gordon is just such a person. I'm glad that Shipp, Parkins and Parker were there to begin that story.

Or something.