The Baltimore- based Susan Alcorn specialises in pedal steel guitar, an instrument that in America has its origins in country music. On her new CD, Pedernal, she writes themes that acknowledge these roots while expanding its possibilities in ensemble interaction by drawing among others from contemporary classical, electronica, jazz, rock and various aspects of avant-improv.

She humbly announced her mission in 2007, releasing a solo CD with the title And I Await the Resurrection of the Pedal Steel Guitar and has been at the forefront of any developments ever since. Besides her solo work, Alcorn has been working in leftfield duo configurations; a stand-out was her intuitive dialogue with the saxophonist Phillip Greenlief on Prism Mirror Lens released in 2017.

But now to Pedernal, written during a period Alcorn spent living in the remote vicinity of the titular New Mexico mountain. It's written for an expanded line­up of personnel selected from NYC's dynamic improv scene, all of whom are close collaborators aside from the Zorn-aligned downtown violin maestro Mark Feldman, with whom she shares an early background playing Nashville country music. Alcorn's themes are playfully melodic for the most part, memorably so on closing track ‘Northeast Rising Sun’, accurately described on the press notes as a ‘Sufi hoedown’. They are also jumping-off points for intriguing otherworldly episodes which evolve organically from various micro-groupings, especially those that feature the texturally- inventive guitar fretwork of Mary Halvorson. ‘Night in Gdansk’ for example sees Alcorn and the idiosyncratic Halvorson's warping sonics evolve over elongated stretches of eerily abstract psychedelica, for want of a better word, making you wonder what the hell went on at that night at the Polish seaport. Feldman adds another important dimension to the music with his more anchored neo-classical- informed lyricism. The wait is over: the pedal steel guitar renaissance starts here.