Even with all that going for it, following this template doesn't guarantee the record is going to be any good; risk-taking implies the real chance for failure, after all. Prezens works because Torn is pitching perfectly timed curveballs at every opportunity. The songs zigs where you expect it to zag. He creates ambient structures and then tears them down, sometimes in dramatic fashion, long before they get too rote. And Torn does all this while often remaining tuneful.

Take the opening track "AK." Its beginning statement is made a with a looped sample drenched in reverb before Torn introduces the song's key on a softly-played electric guitar. Meanwhile, Taborn provides some blues-heavy figures from a Hammond B-3 organ and Berne blurts out some smears from his sax as Rainey's stuttered drumming is taken in and out of the mix and some odd, electronic sounds are randomly thrown in. Slowly, a riff emerges out of Berne and a gradual build up ensues. The riff culminates in the drums' full participation and Torn's crunching axe playing the riff in unison. After a few rounds at full bore the band backs out except for Taborn's organ noodling and Torn's atmospherics before Berne plays subdued notes to take the tune out as gently as it began.

The semi-title song "The Structural Function Of Prezens" employs an even more unpredictable tact, as explained in a past One Track Mind. "Bulbs" has a clamorous false start which dies off before a chord progression is introduced that at times sounds like jungle funk-era Miles. Similarly, "Neck-Deep In the Harrow" has a "On The Corner" aesthetic to it in the contentious middle section where Taborn and Torn trade fours.

"Them Buried Standing" is a brief, bizarre samba. "Sink" features Berne's all-out skronking in a inspired mash-up of electronica and free jazz. "Transmit Regardless" finds Berne and Torn simul-soloing with Rainey's seriously funky beat churning underneath.

There's much more going on with these tracks than I've bothered to describe, however, but it would take up too much space to even skim over all the nuances found in each of them. And that's part of the beauty of them; a casual listen picks up the mixed-in markers that Torn uses to set up each segment of the songs but more intense listening reveals the tight interaction of those core recordings.

Everyone has different opinions on what makes a great record. The ones I chose as my favorites for this year I thought were good for widely different reasons. But a record that challenges my preconceptions, is played with a high level of creativity and reveals more of itself each time I listen to it is the kind of record I put in a special category. For 2007, David Torn's Prezens fits that criteria the best.

Purchase: David Torn - Prezens