If ... (Bonus Track Version)

After taking on several film-scoring projects, former Coral guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones emerges as a full-fledged composer on his solo debut, If . . .. The technical assurance and mastery of mood exceed what even devoted fans might have expected from this gifted musician. If . . . takes its inspiration from Italo Calvino’s experimental novel If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, invoking some of the book’s surreal sense of time and identity. Enlisting the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Ryder-Jones opens with the stately swirl of the title tune before introducing baroque shadings in “The Reader (Malbork)” and conjuring up a Victorian ambiance in “Leaning (Star of Sweden).” The funeral-march tempo of “By the Church of Appolonia” gives way to the sweetness of “Le Grande Desordre” and the shadowy insinuations of “Enlace.” A trio of reflective pieces leads to the orchestral majesty of “Some Absolute End (The End).” Ryder-Jones keeps his vocals understated, letting his music’s instrumental grandeur speak eloquently on its own.