Terminal 4 is the latest project from cellist-composer Fred Lonberg-Holm, whose elegant salon pop is quite nicely showcased here. The most obvious distinguishing feature here is the eclectic instrumentation; in addition to Lonberg-Holm's cello, double bass and trombone feature prominently. When guitars do rear their heads, they are tamed and tightly controlled. There's nary a drum to be heard on the album, and only one song, "She Caught Herself", has vocals. Terria Gartelos' vocal style is Astrud Gilberto crossed with Billie Holiday and a bit of Joan La Barbara thrown in -- intriguing to say the least! While Gartelos is underused here, I can't complain too much, because the seven other non-vocal tracks are by no means disappointing.

Take a song like "Slinky." Its long, flowing cello lines are underpinned by the sparsest of support -- some lightly bowed bass here and a bit of guitar comping there are all Lonberg-Holm gives himself in the way of backup. The attention is clearly on him and his intriguing, lyrical melody. There's something very filmic about this track -- about the whole disc, in fact -- but in a whimsical way, like it could be stored in some stock music database somewhere as "Incidental Music for a Spring Day (Windy)". "This Was the Frippe Time" has a similar tenor, though it's more epic, or at least operates on a slightly grander scale -- certainly there's greater dynamic and melodic range.

The opening track, "Oil Pack", is notable because I could so easily imagine it having been stolen from Porgy and Bess. I think the Gershwin allusion is entirely appropriate, for like Gershwin, Lonberg-Holm seems to want to make an honest woman out of pop music -- to sophisticate it and give it artistic integrity. Terminal 4 goes a long way to support the argument that he's succeeding.