Julia Hülsmann’s tender jazz explorations are where piano and poetry collide. Often inspired by literary works (her 2003 album Scattering Poems reimagined tales by American great E.E. Cummings as brooding jazz laments), the German’s compositions are typically dreamy passages of meandering double bass, shuffling drums and gorgeous melodic flourishes as evocative as the writing that inspired them. Not afraid to let her piano fade from the focal point of tracks with vocalists such as Theo Bleckmann on “A Noisless Patient Spider”, Hülsmann is an invigorating force.