The last time we heard from Martin Pema and Adrian Quesada, they were holed up together in Austin, waiting for Pema’s bio-fuelled Mercedes to be repaired. El Nino Y El Sol, the result of this enforced cohabitation, was a wild Latin funkfest reminiscent of an extended War live album. This time around, the two are more subdued and their efforts more jazz-infused, as if the inspiration was not East L.A., but rather Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew. The Alchemist Manifesto contains the same sort of swirling soundscapes, filled with late-night revelries and hidden rituals. While Quesado’s flute might seem lost on opener “The Grand Elixir,” it quickly establishes the ear-catching whimsy of “El Pescador,” a rustic charmer, which is immediately followed by the sophisticated “Les Dunes d’Ostenda.” There are no liner notes to offer an explanation of Pema and Quesado’s Alchemist Manifesto, but the album is held together by the sombre undertones of songs such as “One Hundred Years,” and possesses enough folk hints to give the album a mythic character that transports the listener into some otherworldly realm.