The Ancient Battle of the Invisible, CamJazz ***

If young guitarists around the world are sounding more like Kurt Rosenwinkel with every passing year, the reason is clear: the mercurial American has given the instrument a new language, and guitarists with quick ears have picked it up and turned it to their own uses. Paris-based Italian six-stringer Federico Casagrande certainly has, but then he spent three years in Boston studying with many of Rosenwinkel's teachers, so it is perhaps not surprising that he is already fluent in the American's new argot. Casagrande's voice as a composer, however, is more distinctive, and judging by his third release under his own name, his instincts as a leader are sound. The group he has assembled here, with vibraphonist Jeff Davis, bassist Simon Tailleu and drummer Gautier Garrigue, flexes plenty of improvisational muscle, the vibes and guitar in particular weaving a taut rhythmic fabric that stretches this way and that without ever tearing. federicocasagrande.com