Another installment of the impeccable Slack Key Guitar Masters series on Dancing Cat, this album features Ozzie Kotani, a former student of the great Sonny Chillingworth and a topnotch performer in his own right. With a picking style that rings vaguely of classical guitar (though according to Kotani it definitely isn't), he plunges through a number of standards and original compositions for the slack key guitar. His playing works itself through an alternating bass that comes and goes throughout the backing of the songs, and an ability to express his emotions through the music. Cases in point: "Kani Kipaipai" (the sound of inspiration), dedicated to Chillingworth, is a higher-tempo piece with fewer of the occasional bitter tunings that the strings can emit, while "Ku'u Lei Poine'le" is a farewell for a pair of friends who had passed on, which conveys much more grief through the tunings, the tempo, and the picking styles. Kotani is definitely an expressive figure in the music -- more so than some others. For fans of slack key, the name may already be known from his work with Chillingworth and others. For newcomers to the genre though, something with more vocal additions (perhaps Cyril Pahinui or Ray Kane) might be in order, even from the same series on Dancing Cat. ~ Adam Greenberg