Like Jack Bruce’s Fairlight release, or Gary Husband’s black box tour recordings, every artist has his shadowy solo corner where works have a greater significance to the creator than is readily available to the listener. Flat Tire: Music For A Non-existent Movie is such a work. Meditative, impassioned, veering between a deep mournfulness and joyous heights, this is the Gnarly Bloke in emotional extremis. Barring the opening cut, the album features Holdsworth on synthaxe, overlaying drum grooves, synthed strings and keyboard-like colours. The much missed Dave Carpenter lays bass on two tracks, but this is really a wander round the dark side of Holdsworth’s soul.

Yet it works; the stand out is ‘The Duplicate Man’, with fiercely knotted themes and broken chordings working with and against each other until a turbulent drum groove lifts the whole. Such patterns are repeated across the album’s nine songs, and it’s perhaps no surprise that the original release disappeared quickly from view as fans still yearned for Holdsworth the axe, not synthaxe hero. But this is a worthy re-issue, competently re-mastered and bears repeated listening. Holdsworth’s voice remains unique, and amid these Messaien-like musings, salvation of a solitary kind slowly surfaces.