No Deal

Coming six years after her 2007 debut A Stomach Is Burning, Melanie De Biasio’s second album won her word-of-mouth acclaim and devotion far beyond her native Belgium. A classically trained flautist and jazz singer, Biasio has been likened to a Belgian Nina Simone, and while there are shades of Simone operating within No Deal’s smoky, late-night atmosphere (alongside Alice Coltrane, Don Cherry and even Eartha Kitt) and she masterfully tackles Simone’s “I’m Gonna Leave You,” the intoxicating spell Biaso casts on the likes of “The Flow”’s simmering spiritual jazz hoodoo is entirely her own. A remix album the following year featuring reworks by, among others, Eels’ Mark Everett and The Cinematic Orchestra, was interesting but largely pointless given that the exquisite source material here really can’t be improved upon.