The title of Quinsin Nachoff's ambitious double album refers to the August 2017 lunar eclipse, when the moon passed in front of the sun and cast a shadow known as the "path of totality." This event also gave rise to a twin-headed metaphor reflecting both his band's creative evolutionary process and the current political and environmental discord in which (hopefully) light will triumph over darkness. Nachoff's approach is to employ his quartet as a nucleus for the album but also to deploy additional musicians on various tracks. Unpacking this double CD suite yields a mass of complex music that requires and demands multiple replays, the better to understand and appreciate the extent of its many nuances. The opening title track, for example, is swathed in a spiralling head that leads into solo passages. But this is just an hors d'oeuvres for the entr?e which is divided into several layers. At nearly twenty minutes, "Bounce" is festooned with surprises including breathtakingly fleet saxophone solos. There's also a poignant section towards the conclusion of the number where Jason Barnsley performs, on a Kimball Theatre organ, a requiem for two of Nachoff's late-lamented heroes, Kenny Wheeler and John Taylor. Another twenty minute track is the sultry, swirling "Toy Piano Meditation" on which Matt Mitchell's lengthy piano introduction is eventually joined by saxophone and Mark Duggan's subtle and varied percussion
