Accessible and complicated, alluring and challenging, sensuous and liberating, Patricia Barber's Smash once and for all confirms the pianist/singer exists in an elevated artistic plane reached by none of her generational peers. Four years in the making, and the beloved musician's first studio record since 2008, her Concord Records debut defies expectations and crystallizes her status as a preeminent songwriter. Informed by personal episodes of significant loss and yearning, the album masterfully unites harmony and melody via uncommon delicacy, tonal intimacy, and ethereal surrealism. It will likely stand as 2013's finest jazz effort, an instant classic.

Mastered from the original master tapes, Mobile Fidelity's hybrid SACD possesses audiophile-quality fidelity and dynamic transparency unmatched by the commercially released CD. Akin to the reissue label's previous Barber releases, Smash brings the singer and her band into your listening room, converting it into a recreation of the stage at Chicago's Green Mill, Barber's home base. Sonic characteristics crucial to Barber's sophisticated compositions – atmospherics, decay, whisper-soft transients, mood, acoustic dimensions, precise imaging – are rendered with utmost detail, balance, and accuracy. All else that's required for your trip to the Green Mill is a stereo and glass of chardonnay.

Punctuated by deft instrumental passages and mysterious verses, Smash marks a triumphant return for Barber after she endured a series of melancholic episodes, including the death of her mother and four other people clo