Born and bred in Los Angeles, the 51-year-old Nels Cline is probably the best guitarist you've never heard of. In musical circles, he's been steadily building a reputation since the 1980s, when he began recording with Julius Hemphill, Vinny Golia, and Tim Berne. Like these bushwhacking artists, Cline has tended to dwell in the jazz hinterlands, where harmonic complexity meets pure noise. Yet he has also consorted with such diverse figures as Charlie Haden, Willie Nelson, and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. And all along, Cline has released a string of solo projects, of which the latest is Draw Breath.

Issued on Cryptogramophone earlier this summer, the disc brings back the leader's sparring partners from such earlier recordings as Instrumentals and The Giant Pin: Devin Hoff on bass and Scott Amendola on drums. By now they're a remarkably cohesive unit, equal parts dash and thrash. They're also adept at negotiating the mercurial textures of Cline's music, which defies easy description.

"Caved-In Heart Blues," for example, is not a blues. It begins with a ritualistic, thudding figure from Hoff and Amendola. The leader spells out a minimalist scrap of melody--like John Lee Hooker in a wistful mood--and we do seem to be moving toward the blues. Just then, however, the piece morphs into a cloud of acoustic guitar and processed noise. "Attempted" follows a similar flight plan, swerving from metallic jazz to out-of-tempo atmospherics in the blink of an eye (just to keep us on our toes, Cline makes his guitar sound like a Farfisa organ near the end). The only predictable thing about this music is its unpredictability.

Not that it always works. "An Evening At Pop's" is as varied as the rest of the pack, ladling out feedback, crazed looping, and a refreshingly humane arco solo from Hoff, but the noise-to-music ratio here may be too high for many a listener. The same thing goes for "Mixed Messages," where even Amendola's percussive bombardments fail to sustain nearly fifteen minutes of headbanging and whispery, wind-in-the-branches noodling.

To his credit, though, Cline knows how to vary the program. "Angel of Angels" and "Recognize I" find him in gentler territory, reminiscent of Bill Frisell (a comparison that must drive him crazy by now). "Squirrel of God" beefs up the ensemble--yep, they've added a glockenspiel--and the leader expands his own sonic palette, with some sawing noises that suggest he may be building a tree house.

For Cline, clearly, less is not always more: he thrives on excess. Yet Draw Breath is most effective when he stuffs his protean treats into smaller packages. In that sense, he might take a leaf from his current tenure with Wilco. Jeff Tweedy invited him to join the band in 2004, when they were touring behind A Ghost Is Born, and Cline has added a jolt to that great eclectic's musical universe. (As he told one interviewer, "I've kind of ramped up the noise factor on some of the older rock songs.") But it's also edifying to hear how the concision of traditional song form keeps Cline at the top of his game. Just check out his work on Sky Blue Sky--or this recent Wilco show taped at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City. On a piece like "Impossible Germany," Cline retains much of his solo from the studio version, but adds pizzazz, ornament, extra raunch; on "Jesus, Etc." his pedal-steel fills float buoyantly in the background. Draw Breath is pure, undiluted Cline, and I'm grateful for it, yet the concentrated version is just as thrilling. A little dab will do you.