With Mbókò, pianist-composer David Virelles - based now in New York but born and bred in Cuba - has taken the folkloric rhythms of Afro-Cuban religious ritual and transmuted them into a 21st-century music resonating with mystery and meaning. The main title, Mbókò, can mean "fundament" or "sugar cane" or "The Voice, " not the human voice but the Voice that is believed in Abakuá culture to be the voice of a spirit, or spirits. Sound is an element revered in this culture, and that idea - the worship of sound itself - was a shaping force in the performances of Virelles' compositions on Mbókò.The album's subtitle - Sacred Music for Piano, Two Basses, Drum Set and B iankoméko Abakuá - indicates both the ritualistic intent of the 10 pieces & their sound, with piano as lead voice alongside dual bass drone and the polyrhythmic percussion of a traditional trap set and the all-important four-drum biankoméko kit, manned by Román Diaz. Virelles has tapped into a musical impulse that is simultaneously ancient and modern, communal and personal, meditative and propulsive. Mbókò casts a spell.