The Hands Free is an acoustic quartet of cutting-edge, genre-hopping musicians. James Moore (guitar/banjo), Caroline Shaw (violin), Nathan Koci (accordion), and Eleonore Oppenheim (bass) take their inspiration here from a 1937 collection of poems and drawings entitled Les Mains libres by writer Paul Éluard and artist Man Ray. This album, recorded in analog sound, captures something of the surrealist nature of the duo’s collection and proves very seductive in the process. Frenetic one moment, mesmerizing the next, this music makes you laugh and think in equal measure. One thing it won’t do is leave you unmoved.