Following last year's release of Piano Jondo, flamenco-influenced jazz pianist Diego Amador is back with another infusion of richly improvisational Gitano (Spanish Roma, or Gypsy) soul. On Rìo de los Canasteros ("River of the Basket-Makers" - the title refers to a traditional livelihood of nomadic, rural-based Gitano tribes) the bandleader's powerfully virile yet fluid and imaginative piano is heard in fierce, romantic interplay with guitars and vocals, plus blistering percussion and palmas (handclaps). Featuring guest turns from guitar master Tomatito, legendary cantaora (female singer) La Susi, Diego's own brother Raimundo Amador, who is equally famed for his Gitano/blues-inflected guitar and inclusive individuality, super-bassist Carles Benavent and the versatile Argentinean guitarist Luis Salinas, the album has a charged yet relaxed feeling, much like the atmosphere at a juerga, an informal jam session where anyone can join in and anything can happen. Lopsided, incessantly mutating rhythms are wreathed in soaring melodies that can shift in a heartbeat between urbane coolness and feverish emotional engagement. Each of the nine tracks is as redolent of all-night urban back-room gatherings as long centuries of roadside bonding - and singed by a hard-won, borderline supernatural and specifically Iberian musical bliss known as duende.