Perfect Traveler, the new album from Yosef Gutman, continues his illuminating exploration of the human spirit and his invocation of hope, gratitude, peace, and resolve.

Yosef Gutman
Perfect Traveler (Soul Song Records)
A review
A while back, I received a preview of three tracks from Perfect Traveler, the then forthcoming album from Yosef Gutman (aka Yosef-Gutman Levitt), and one particularly hectic morning a couple of weeks ago, I sat down for a quick listen to the first of the tracks, “Small Channel.” Its spare and spacious beauty immediately captured me, and I abandoned my immediate plans and went on to listen to the next track and the next. Those 10+ minutes of listening completely altered the trajectory of my day, calming my increasingly anxious response to overlapping obligations and centering me in a restful openness much better suited to addressing those obligations. I’ve been pondering the opening lines of the spoken words on “Small Channel” ever since:

Could you help me become more see-through? Not invisible, I know that’s not the point, but clear enough that when people see kindness, they see you, not me.

This is not the first time Gutman’s music has had such an effect on me, as you can see from my reviews of Upside Down Mountain, Why Ten?, River of Eden, and Resisei Lyla. His music springs from a deep well of introspection that buoys Gutman’s resolve to live in a space of gratitude and service. Four of the album’s 14 concise tracks include spoken word, with Gutman not so much reciting his poetry as he is confiding the discoveries of his internal spelunking to the listener.

Recorded at Gutman’s home studio, the album has a very live feel. The songs began as improvised and recorded sessions between Gutman (five-string acoustic bass guitar, contrabass) and Yonathan Avishai (piano), with the material shaped afterward, with contributions from Gilad Ronen (woodwinds) and Daniel Dor (drums). The music—with its uncomplicated and beautiful melodies, several drawn from Yemenite and Moroccan Jewish liturgical poetry, the others composed by Gutman, Avishai, or both—slows and opens the heart. The deft, uncluttered arrangements transmit a rich clarity of feeling and make an offering of peace and hope in the midst of our cluttered, messy, and often desperate world.

This is an album to sit with quietly, allowing its gentle, humble strength to fortify the light burning in your heart.

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