This is bassist Ali Watson’s self-produced debut album. A long-standing member of tenor saxophonist Matt Carmichael’s band, who appears here on tenor saxophone, he is ably supported by Edition Records pianist Alan Benzie and Greg Irons on drums, a musician highly regarded north of the border. The evocative cover of deer through a misty glen is suggestive of the mood of quiet reflection and contemplation that Watson has taken as the album’s theme. “I want the music to feel like an escape or even something of an antidote to all the busyness, bombasticness, loudness and constant stimulations of the world today,” he says. Well, adagio and sotto voce do have that effect, although Carmichael should write out Watson’s words a hundred times for his rather over busy solo on ‘Moss’ that’s all notes and no meaning.

‘Earth’ is a solo bass improvisation that suggests the hazy outline of ‘Loch Lomond,’ with the unwanted subtext that a little more work on tonal production probably would not go amiss. It’s interesting to reflect that bassist Israel Crosby played a cheap student model bass on his historic sides with Ahmad Jamal and Vernel Fournier, and made his bass sound like an Edgar Russ model of today.