Finally a title that bridges the gap between pedestrian (so-and-so quartet plays, oh I don't know, Hindemith) and impenetrable (Bird Cave Noise Wind…note, not a real album…yet). Ukraine-born Lithuanian drummer Arkady Gotesman takes advantage of a simple concept embodied in the name to curate his own improvisational retrospective, creating a super structure around selections from a 25-year period in his career, all but one from Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.

Things begin and end with extracts from the same 2023 solo performance, Gotesman credited not with drums but instead "stained glass pieces". In between are six duets with compatriot reedplayer Liudas Mockūnas or pianist Tomas Kutavičius, British fellow drummer Mark Sanders, Swedish saxophonist Martin Küchen and Americans of very different generations in saxophonist Charles Gayle or trumpeter Nate Wooley; a trio of trios with Eastern European avant jazz legend Vyacheslav Ganelin (piano) and Lithuanian Petras Vyšniauskas (reeds); compatriots Jan Maksimovič (reeds) and Eugenijus Kanevičius (bass); and Cold War-esque battle with American Ned Rothenberg (reeds, flute) and Russian Vladimir Volkov (bass); and one all-Lithuanian quartet with saxophonists Petras Vyšniauskas and Vytautas Labutis and Kanevičius once more. Given the varying different contexts, specific experience, age disparity (Ganelin 80 and Mockūnas 23 at the time of their collaborations) and track lengths (Gotesman's solos under 2 minutes each, the duet with Mockūnas nearly 11 and Rothenberg/Volkov trio the longest at over 12), the dozen pieces contain vastly disparate soundscapes, helping push the prescribed conceit.

Gotesman, the fixed point around which all the music rotates and project supervisor (along with NoBusiness head Danas Mikailionis), has created a document with far more continuity than a typical compilation of live dates. The sound quality is consistent despite years and venues and Gotesman appears to have been very deliberate in his programming, with tracks moving organically to the next, like it was a baton relay or round-robin type of show. Depending on a listener's textural preferences, certain encounters will be of greater interest, but the album really should be listened to as a whole.