For his fourth solo album, singer-songwriter-keyboardist Keith Burnstein complements his genre-straddling songs with dynamic, expansive production. It’s a pleasure to hear horns and woodwinds throughout the project, including horn-chart arranger Ejric Bernhardt’s saxophone, Scott Frock’s trumpet, Charles Lumar’s tuba and, Jana Saslow’s flute and Joey Troia’s French horn pushing Burnstein’s pop-music palette, already beyond conventional, even further.

A New York City native, Burnstein moved to New Orleans in 2010, while he was still a member of The Mumbles. With his understated, school-of-Mose Allison vocals as a constant, the wide-ranging Things That Are Heavy Make Me Feel Light encompass pop, soul, Latin flavor, gospel and stride piano. 

The album’s bittersweet opening song, “Teenage Pact,” shifts between soft and spare to big and thumping. “Decades” begins quietly, too, before surprising with tuba and trumpet solos. Deemphasizing Burstein’s reedy, laid-back style, the latter song’s solos, arrangement and six minute-plus length achieve the intricacy and heft of classical chamber music.

The pop-soul sound of “Waiting to Say Something Wise” suggests Burnstein knows the music of Marvin Gaye and Van Morrison well. The former New Yorker applies a Latin touch to “Upper West Side” and “Intensely Autumn,” the album’s final song and grandest production. Burnstein also tackles gospel with “In My Next Life” and stride piano in “There Go Them Bills.”

Despite his new album’s far-flung diversity, Burnstein and his many collaborators create an engaging whole that doesn’t sound dilettantish. Things That Are Heavy Make Me Feel Light is available at digital music outlets and keithburnstein.com.