Susanne Abbuehl’s “Compass” is a voyage at many levels: through text and music, and through text as music, with images evoking the salt-tang of sea air and the bright colours of wildflowers. A voyage through extreme poles of jazz – from Chick Corea to Sun Ra, through folk song in the slipstream of Luciano Berio, through poetry and prose-poetry of James Joyce, through verse as diverse as that of proto-modernist William Carlos Williams and Ming dynasty poet Feng Meng-Lung. It is a journey through subtly undulating chamber music, improvised and otherwise. Through it all, Abbuehl’s cool, undemonstrative-yet-strangely-mesmeric voice is the unifying factor. She sings and speaks and whispers directly into the listener’s ear; hers is an intimate, ‘interior’ voice: singing like thinking aloud.