Free-bop, indie rock and chamber pop knock about with arresting results on “Draw Breath” (Cryptogramophone), the third album by the Nels Cline Singers. Led by the guitarist Nels Cline, the group includes no actual singers, just Devin Hoff, a bassist, and Scott Amendola, a drummer. But as the band name and album title both suggest, there’s a vocal imperative at work here, a sense of respiring and descanting as one. This technique derives from avant-garde jazz, and at specific moments — notably the first section of “Mixed Message,” a bristling group improvisation — the lineage feels explicit. Elsewhere experimental rock provides a clearer context. (Check “Mixed Message” again, this time for the raucous last five minutes.) “Confection” could sit companionably on a Sonic Youth album; “Squirrel of God” is a stormy-turned-sunny rumination with percussion by Glenn Kotche, Mr. Cline’s colleague in Wilco. And given the various strains of abrasiveness on the album, it seems worth noting that the centerpiece is a glimmering waltz called “The Angel of Angels,” one of the prettiest and most radiant offerings of Mr. Cline’s career. - New York Times/b>, June 24, 2007