16. Miles Okazaki Thisness (Pi)

For Thisness Miles Okazaki utilized the Surrealist game Exquisite Corpse, in which the final unfolded “picture” creates a unique image with several unrelated sections. Here, musical transitions come both radically and gradually; a loose, flowing passage gives way to a 4/4 groove or Matt Mitchell wedges a keyboard melody in a place where it didn’t seem possible. Like his visual inspiration, Okazaki’s Charlie Christian model Gibson ES-175 guitar unleashes a tapestry of ideas that surprise and captivate. MIKE SHANLEY