This beautiful-looking and sounding album was recorded in a home studio at the top of Mount Tamalpais, so “Sleeping Lady” couldn't be a more fitting title for an album that also includes a golden photograph of Mt. Tam on the cover.

Originally a quartet of music majors at the University of Southern California, the group downsized three years go to a guitar trio featuring Perry Smith, a 2001 Redwood High grad who grew up in Tiburon, John Storie and Brady Cohan. This is New West's third album, but its first as a threesome.

This CD is being advertised as a collaboration between New West and Santa Cruz guitar maker Jeff Traugott. All 11 of the disk's original songs were played on Traugott's steel-string acoustic guitars.

They sound wonderful, and, priced at $26,500 and up, they should.

Anyone expecting a New Agey album full of soothing songs suitable for massage sessions or meditation retreats will either be sorely disappointed or pleasantly surprised. The trio's tunes are smart, sophisticated and fascinating in their unconventional takes on jazz, rock and pop. And it isn't every day you hear a group in which all three members play the same instrument. Rather than limiting them, the three guitars allow them to build a big, full, lush sound, a new kind of chamber music.

The band pays homage to Mt. Tam on the ethereal title track, with Grammy-nominated Gretchen Parlato, a rising new generation jazz singer, adding breathy scat vocal lines. She

also lends her gentle voice to the sweetly-sung ballad “Never Had a Chance.” In another Mt. Tam reference, the gravity railroad that used to twist and turn up and down the mountain gets a lively musical tribute in the sprightly tune “Crooked Railroad.” The achingly lovely “Estrellita” and the lush “California” characterize this 20-something trio's soulful new direction in guitar music.

Buy It: “Sleeping Lady,” New West, independent, CD Baby; $12.97

Tell us about your band! If you're a musician or band from Marin or Sonoma with a recording that readers can buy or download, send your CD and contact information (if you have an upcoming gig, let us know that, too) to Press Play, P.O. Box 6150, Novato 94948-6150.