Paul Motian’s trio with saxophonist Joe Lovano and guitarist Bill Frisell persisted for more than 20 years, gradually taking on legendary status, but their profound chemistry was evident right from the start, on this, the first album to feature only these three musicians. Though they had appeared as part of a quintet on earlier Motian efforts — including The Story of Maryam, a thrilling 1984 set — something special happened when the lineup contracted. The shift gave these three a license to sprawl out in various directions, exploring haunting ambient melodicism (the title track), swinging and marvelously spacious postbop (“In the Year of the Dragon”), craggy free jazz (“Two Women From Padua,” where Frisell uses his guitar synth to unleash bursts of sci-fi weirdness) and a sort of radical emptiness (a spooky, spectral rendition of “Conception Vessel,” the title track to an earlier Motian ECM release). Simply put, no jazz had ever sounded anything like this, and roughly four decades on, it still registers as visionary future music, peculiar yet emotionally piercing.