New York guitarist-composer Giancarlo Vulcano was formally trained in music at Sarah Lawrence and CUNY–Queens College, but appears to be recovering nicely. In 2002 he cofounded Present Music, a scrappy composers’ collective that pursued its creative path in downtown nightclubs and alternative spaces. As an assistant to film composer Howard Shore, Vulcano worked on films such as The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and A History of Violence. And somehow he manages to moonlight in Las Rubias del Norte, a Brooklyn band that specializes in vintage Latin pop.

The eight plainspoken miniatures on Vetro evoke a gentle world rendered in primary colors; if there is a minimalism at play, it’s that of Satie rather than Glass or Reich. Three pieces—Portrait of Arthur Rimbaud (for piano), Portrait of Richard Manuel (for electric guitar) and Self-Portrait (for keyboards)—are essentially the same composition viewed from different angles: as music-box twinkle, backwoods lament and urban soundscape. (The last turned up in an episode of 30 Rock.)

Throughout the disc, you sense a vivid visual imagination at play. In 3 x 3 Nos. 1 and 2, Vulcano and his collaborators swirl around one another like parts of a mobile circling at different speeds. Music for Fish Tanks has a multitracked clarinetist playing lines that drift lazily past one another, seemingly without direction. Tierra del Fuego demonstrates Vulcano’s knack for writing actual film music, but the other pieces are plenty scenic on their own.

—Steve Smith