Norwegian-born lutenist and guitarist Rolf Lislevand has committed what amounts to heresy. On his new recording Nuove Musiche (ECM New Series), the professor of lute and historical performance practice at Trossingen Musikhochschule has, in a sense, reinvented orthodoxy.

Playing archlute, baroque guitar, and theorbo, Lislevand makes his instruments swing as much as they sigh. Taking his cue from authentic baroque music performance of the 1600s, he and his supporting musicians bring a distinctly modern improvisatory spirit to his arrangements of baroque melodies. Instead of attempting to play Kapsberger, Pellegrini, and Piccinini as one might have played them in the 17th century, the ensemble treats the composers as if they were still living, writing, and expecting musicians to improvise on the spot. The results are most unusual: period instruments played according to knowledge gleaned from period sources, but with a distinctly modern sensibility.

Rather than in the usual authentic-instrument manner, the disc was recorded in a studio using multi-tracking techniques and reverb. Musicians improvised while wearing headphones to enable them to better hear each other. Balances were then fine-tuned electronically during mixing sessions, allowing the performers maximum freedom to explore without fear of drowning each other out.

Lislevand's

collaborators, some of whom also perform with his Kapsberger Ensemble, include two musicians closely associated with early music virtuoso Jordi Savall: his gifted daughter Arianna Savall (triple harp, voice) and the miraculous Pedro Estevan (percussion). Bjorn Kjellemyr (colascione, double-bass), Guido Morini (organ, clavichord), Marco Ambrosini (nyckelharpa), and Thor Harald Johnsen (chitarra batttente) complete the ensemble. These crack players give their considerable all to music that bridges centuries with its freshness.

Todd Garfinkle of MA Recordings loves to track down unusual, extremely creative musicians whose work he captures in extraordinary sound. His latest coup, Llama, was recorded in the remarkably spacious, clear acoustic of Capella de la Mare de Déu de l'Esperanca in Barcelona.

Llama pairs Hang player Ravid Goldschmidt with the curious vocalism of S'lvia Pérez Cruz. Goldschmidt's Hang is a large, resonant, stainless-steel pie; Garfinkle describes it as "UFO-like." Designed and manufactured by Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer of Bern, Switzerland, and inspired by the steel-pan drums of Trinidad and Topago, it sounds like a far mellower cousin. The Hang can both resonate like bongos lower in the register and ring like a cross between a steel drum and a finger piano in its higher registers.

One can only fully comprehend what the Hang can do by hearing it played by a master such as Goldschmidt. Born and raised on an Israeli kibbutz, he converted from drummer to Hang player after hearing the instrument played at a music festival in Israel. The 25-year-old virtuoso currently divides his time between formal concerts in Spain and Europe and street performances that give him direct contact with his audiences.

S'lvia P�rez Cruz, who is both a vocalist and jazz saxophone player, has a unique voice with more than a hint of the spoiled child in it. Her improvisations are one-of-a-kind, fusing styles ranging from fado and African to jazz. You can even hear echoes of flamenco, drawn from her experience as a member of an all-female flamenco quartet.

Perez and Goldschmidt create a music all its own. Their sole jazz-tinged excursion in English, the vocal "I'm All Smiles" with arresting Hang accompaniment, could become a major hit in jazz circles if it falls into the right hands.

Thanks to Garfinkle, the CD includes five of Goldschmidt's song-like compositions for solo Hang. Enhanced by the resonant acoustic of the small church, these contemplative tracks are tinged with sadness and nostalgia, as though one were a longing for another time and place. They deserve the widest possible audience.