Hi-Noone is a beautifully constructed album. It is imbued with maturity and experience. The story book quality of "The Smile" is really cool, and it is personally my favorite part of this album. It bestows the aura of a bedtime story and strongly evokes the listeners imagination. Another unique feature of this album is Usul's mandolin. It is not often that you hear mandolin featured in music today, yet Usul uses it often in rich moving lead lines throughout the album. Usul is a very powerful music persona, an extremely talented artist, and an amazing performer. I look forward to his future endeavors. He is a refreshing alternative to the corporate controlled musicians that pervade our radio and media.

It's Sunday afternoon. The cat is sleeping in the sun streaming through the western windows. The most pressing thing on the agenda involves finishing the travel section of the newspaper. In the background, a lone guitar riff circles and dances while a girl's voice quietly recites the closing lines of a Ray Bradbury story. It's all very soothing. The song is "Down the Road in Twos and Threes," the final segment of a three-movement "Bradbury Suite," found on Usul's 2004 album Hi Noone. Portland musician and composer Patrick Finley is the creative mind behind Usul, and Hi Noone (an intentional pun on "High Noon," and saluting an influential friend) is an eclectic and intriguing collection of Finley's richly textured compositions from the last three years. Trained in classical trombone but schooled in the Portland Jazz scene, Finley's works range from structured improvisation to fully orchestrated pieces (the CD reflects contributions of 14 musicians overall), enhanced and ornamented with layers of samples and overdubs. Some pieces are quiet, personal compositions; "Gillian's Wake," specifically, being part of Finley's response to a 2003 trip to Ireland. In contrast, "Deigh Veesch" is a tense and anxious soundtrack, featuring a noirish, muted trumpet (by Matt Moor) playing a counterpoint to a driving solo guitar. "Oswald" and "3 for 3" are both what Finley calls "crafted improvisations," featuring a two-part improvised foundation, embellished with overdubs and then edited to coalesce around a theme. While varied, the pieces share an intensely visual, cinematic tone, something Finley actually hopes to expand upon in the future. Similar, in a way, to the stunning visuals of movies like Koyaanisqatsi or Baraka, Finley envisions ultimately creating filmed elements to accompany and enhance the experience of the music. Still in his early twenties, Finley has shown a deft hand at creating intricate and fascinating works of sound art. His youth and vision suggest that Usul is but the base of a strong body of work yet to come.