By Michael J. West | Published November 2026
The abrasive, odd-meter angularity of “Paul,” the opening track on guitarist Max Light’s Unlearning, serves notice right up front: This is not easy listening. Nor should it be. Unlearning was inspired by Light’s observations of his own father’s deteriorating mental state, which can only be confounding and difficult. So if the compositional and improvised forms and melodies of “Paul,” “Authentication Two-Step” and “Gracebound in Parody” can feel like Sideshow Bob repeatedly stepping on rakes, well, that’s about right.
Shafts of light, however, do occasionally break through this frustrated murk. Light’s solo intro to “Unlearning” is more like an unwinding, as of a bandage or shroud being removed, with the tandem entry of pianist Julian Shore, bassist Walter Stinson and drummer Steven Crammer a satisfied affirmation and guest soprano saxophonist Caleb Wheeler Curtis then displaying a cautious, curious optimism (which Light then echoes in his solo, even as he bumps into a few more dead ends). The entirety of “Talking to You,” meanwhile, plays as a build-up to a breakthrough, with the following “Pumpkin Pie” an open, immediately approachable display of emotion and warmth. (Stinson’s solo is a genuine tear-jerker.)
The album’s backbone is the trio of “Recollections” scattered across it. Light, Stinson and Shore in turn give us brief, unaccompanied snapshots of nostalgia and perhaps even joy. Yet each one of these is shorter and more dissipated than the previous; when Shore’s all-too-loose “Recollection III” finally dissolves into the concluding “Caregiving,” we listeners are left adrift, unfulfilled, but also fortified with the determination of now being the one in charge.
The bittersweetness of Unlearning is certainly more bitter than sweet—but that’s what makes the sweet moments feel earned, and still the sweeter for it. —Michael J. West
