This 2008 release is an out-jazz wonder. The young flutist Nicole Mitchell, who is a member of the venerable Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, has crafted a work that combines the spirit of free improv with a strong compositional sense. Xenogenesis Suite is based on a trilogy by the great African-American science fiction writer Octavia Butler. The late author was one of those fantasists who created wholly believable alien worlds where real human emotions, often dark ones, played out. Xenogenesis Suite is Mitchell’s emotional response to Butler’s work, with the instrumental music meant to convey Butler’s wonderfully strange environments and Mankwe Ndosi’s vocals standing in for the human presence within them. Mitchell’s approach captures the intensity of the challenging situations that Butler’s protagonists find themselves in. Ndosi’s often wordless vocalizing is powerful and unique; she carves out her own space on the musical landscape. Mitchell’s writing for the eight instrumentalists — who along with Ndosi make up the Black Earth Ensemble — is strikingly fresh, and this music is both deeply rooted and futuristic, in more ways than one.