Music for Music: Alta Vista: A Special Case

Alta Vista: A Special Case of Special Cases

By Dan Ursini ©2026

Alta Vista is a special case of everything. They are musician improvisers with a background in jazz, yet bassist Jakob Heinemann asserts that country western remains the group’s aesthetic foundation. Most debut albums spotlight original songs, but Alta Vista’s self-titled first effort from 2024 contained their versions of tunes from a cast-off  Thirties-era country songbook. The thing is, they uncovered a level of musicality in these songs which evidently no one else had ever suspected. It was an auspicious release.*

Now we have their follow-up, Won’t Believe in Dust. Once again, double bassist Heinemann is joined by Chet Zenor on a very clean-sounding electric guitar, and Andy Danstrom on drums, percussion, and occasional keyboards. Each member of this trio composed multiple songs for this album; that is very unusual. These compositions are uniformly strong. Of the album’s eleven tracks, all but one—“Scriabin’s Prelude Op. 11 #15”—are originals. Despite their jazz roots, not one of these original songs is the product of a group jam. Heinemann explains, “We of course took time to collectively process and figure out how we wanted to play or even arrange each piece, but the compositional work was done more or less separately.”

The music on Won’t Believe in Dust expresses a rarefied depth of perspective about a range of marginalized styles and niche genres—including one or two in-house brands. Heinemann adds, “We are very interested in kitsch, pastiche, and building a world within each song.” 

The opening track is “Let’s Make Earth Our Home,” which Danstrom composed and plays on organ. Solidly made, its stately cheerfulness conveys a welcoming, all-ages vibe. So much the opposite of the usual expectation of cutting-edge music, it delivers a stiff yet painless shock—indicating that the usual location of the artistic edge gets a singular shift here. 

Zenor’s “Interstate 80” has a great open road ambience with a dramatic melody carried by his echoey guitar. The song showcases Zenor’s ability to distill a melody to its essence. He explains, “I think it all stems from a singular goal of trying to keep things simple and honest.” On this track and others, Zenor gets incredibly tight support from Danstrom’s  excellent drumming; and from Heinemann’s superb tone and timing on upright bass.

“Holly” is a Heinemann composition imbued by Zenor with a hard sardonic wit. It uses a ginormous descending riff with an abrupt musical punchline at the close. It is repeated several times, and that is the song, period, apart from a remarkable solo from Zenor that employs a couple notes which get the same massive repetition treatment. Behind it all, Heinemann and Danstrom provide furious energy.

Heinemann’s “Silhouette” has a very strong groove. Zenor adds tension throughout with his precise yet enigmatic phrasing. During the final minute, Zenor plays a brilliant exit. He comments, “The way we played that song always reminded me of 60’s and 70’s crime movie soundtracks, and I tried to lean into that sound and vibe during the solo at the end of the tune.”

In Danstrom’s affecting “I Promise To Never Smile Again,” the brooding spirals of its melody convey a fragile power. A strange harmonic shimmer registers in the support by Zenor and Heinemann. In creating this composition, a brilliant decision was made to include a meditative bridge with a pleading guitar solo over Danstrom’s keyboards. Heinemann explains, “Andy came up with a musical mode with which to improvise, and worked with Chet and I to get the texture he wanted.”

An anxious stillness frames the serpentine melody of Danstrom’s “The Last Time,” evoking a dark and otherworldly vibe.

Of all the songs on this album, “Starman Junior” most resists classification. Something like “Speculative Theme Song for an Early Sixties TV Cartoon Show” might do it. “Starman Junior” opens with a loping rhythm and very strange chords which produce restless sonic vibes. A peppy bridge lightens the song. Suddenly, the whole song shifts to a reggae which serves as the frame for a good-natured drum solo, with acoustic drums overlaying electronic percussion. Composer Zenor explains, “‘Starman’ is the only one on the record performed to a metronomic ‘click’ while recording, a stark contrast from some of our more floaty and rubato moments.”

In Heinemann’s “Ask Around,” multi-tracked guitar parts—with soaring skyline slide guitar—convey a slow-breathing lonely melody. Just beneath it, the bass and drums create a stormy energy. In the closing moments, both halves of the songs connect; the end is sudden and cogent.

Heinemann’s “Hometown” has a heavy deliberate power that, at the halfway point, surges and intensifies. Layers are added, including frantic keyboards. This song is exceptionally evocative.

Though Alta Vista regularly taps into unexpected source material, a couple songs are particularly remote from country western. Zenor’s “Pianta” is an irresistible calypso tune, and the interplay among the three musicians is excellent. The tone of Zenor’s guitar is at moments sour and ironic. That aligns with the band’s overriding commitment to music that is rich in implication.

This commitment is especially evident in the treatment of Scriabin’s “Prelude Op. 11 #15.” It takes true artistic nerve to take this piece, usually regarded as an enigmatic gem for piano, and arrange it for electric guitar and double bass. They find a way to intimate the mystery of that gem in Alta Vista’s implicative terms.

This album recorded by Seth Engel at Ohmstead Recording and mastered by Dave Vettraino. The band mixed it themselves. Alta Vista did its own production and mixing. Danstrom says, “Paying attention to the big picture is something I really enjoy during the process of creation. The more I consider the limitations…the more fun I have being creative. Finding the solution that puts all those things into a satisfying tension…guides my decisions.”

Won’t Believe in Dust is adventurous and memorable in a completely satisfying way. I choose to view this album side by side with its self-titled predecessor. They comprise an extended debut by Alta Vista as a band with an enormous scope of promise.

*Alta Vista at EIL (Dan Ursini’s earlier article)

Alta Vista Won’t Believe in Dust at Bandcamp

Album Cover Artist Amy Renee Webb

Dan Ursini and his wife Valerie live in Oak Park, Illinois. Over the years he has done many kinds of writing. Ursini served as the first resident playwright for the Steppenwolf Theatre of Chicago (1978-1983); he worked for ten years as a Contributing Editor for Puerto Del Sol magazine; he wrote performance art pieces presented at such Chicago venues as Club Lower Links and Club Dreamerz. Ursini wrote radio theatre presented on NPR in the early 1990s. Throughout all this, he has worked full-time at the Law Library at DePaul University where for a decade he also wrote articles for Dialogue, the DePaul law school’s alumni publication. A particular highlight was his role as a researcher for a documentary, Race to Execution, about the connection between race and capital punishment in the U.S.A. In 2007 it was broadcast on the PBS series, Independent Lens. Apart from all this, Ursini was active for some years as a bass guitarist in various Chicago blues/gospel/funk/lounge configurations. Currently Ursini is working on his latest novel. Dan can be reached at: danursini@aol.com