Alperin, the Ukrainian pianist who recorded for ECM from 1989 to 1998, seemed tailor-made for the label, fitting its image of northern-European melancholy; his first album was even called Waves of Sorrow.

Now, the former classical musician is a professor of jazz and improv, and this return to ECM is a sparkier affair - though its references remain more overtly classical than jazzy. The album reunites him with the Russian French horn player Arkady Shilkloper and the German cellist Anja Lechner. The keyboard virtuosity is awesome: check the buzzing-bee agility over slow countermelodies on Vayan, or the alternately coquettish and frenzied Jump. But the album's dominant quality is the power of its compositions, which are all Alperin's except for Shilkloper's and Lechner's dialogue on Russian Song. The lovely title track has a gentle child's-dance piano part, and Tiflis displays a horn sound you could warm your hands on. It's barely a jazz record in the usual sense, but it can't be put in a single category, except the one marked Special.