With her album ASH, New York composer/performer Molly Thompson, who studied extensively with Fred Frith, is on a unique path. Instead of taking the current route of many composers (i.e. forming large gang-like collectives that perform each others music) she writes very personal chamber songs that don't fit into any particular compositional genre. So, are they compositions or are they songs? One might say that they're more complex than songs without losing the gripping melodic center of most songs. Having had the pleasure of playing guitar in her ensemble for a few years, the best way I can describe it is that the music sounds like Art Bears (if you could meld Dagmar Krause and Nico's voices together) being covered by an early music ensemble who are playing at a cabaret in Berlin. Beautiful and engaging music.-Patrick Kane McCarthy