"In the fertile & interconnected Chicago music scene, Josh Abrams has been a discreetly important presence for over 20 years: jamming with Tortoise, backing Will Oldham, sharing band members with Ryley Walker, playing bass with a constellation of local jazz notables. Of late, his energies have been concentrated on this shifting collective, where his hybrid of spiritual jazz & the most patient kind of minimalism can be fully realized. Mandatory Reality, the fifth NIS record, is their best yet, with Abrams' guimbri --a three-stringed African lute-- leading his crack band through long-form trance-outs that are equal parts Don Cherry & Phillip Glass. "In Memory's Prism" sustains the mood for a stately 24 minutes, only for "Finite" to take up directly where it left off, & run for another 40. The restraint, especially from the horn section, is astonishing: the overall effect absorbing to the point of transcendence." --John Mulvey