by Bret Love Liu Sola is a Chinese musician whose radically distinctive sound incorporates elements of a number of seemingly incongruous influences, including Chinese opera, free jazz, funk, blues, and even Japanese Noh theater. Her debut Western release features a stellar lineup, including organist Amina Claudine Myers, guitarist James Blood Ulmer, drummer Jerome "Bigfoot" Brailey, saxophonist Henry Threadgill, and the Last Poets' Umar Bin Hassan. Produced by acclaimed fusionist Bill Laswell, the album is a typically eclectic pan-cultural experiment, but one that doesn't always hit its mark. When it does, as on songs like "Boya's Adventures," this bizarre collusive concept is as refreshingly original as anything released in the '90s.