It is common practice for improvising musicians to reinvent standards. What pianist Cory Smythe does here with the Jerome Kern chestnut “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” much like with “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and “Oh! Susanna” on his previous releases, is a different proposition. There are no obvious references to the song’s melody and form. Instead, Smythe uses the song’s pitch and lyric elements to generate material in a highly abstract way. First to appear is a mid-sized ensemble of voice, strings, reeds, brass, and percussion on the “Liquiform” and “Combustion” pieces. Smythe follows this with a seven-part series of improvisations for solo piano, using MIDI keyboards, voice controller, and speakers to distort and augment the acoustic signal into something otherworldly. It is the world, however, and specifically the climate crisis, that prompted Smythe’s artistic response on Smoke, though the result never comes across as literal or didactic.