Benedikt Jahnel's day job may be as a researcher in mathematics at Ruhr university in Bochum, Germany, but he has also had time to accumulate an impressive curriculum vitae in jazz after having studied at the University of Arts in Berlin and selected as a member of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, directed by Peter Herbolzheimer. His performing credits include the likes of Phil Woods, John Abercrombie, Dave Liebman, Wolfgang Muthspiel, and Charlie Mariano, plus his own trio, and as a member of Cyminology, Das Cactus 6tett and the quartet Max Bab. A thoughtful and convincing pianist on his ECM debut as a leader (he had previously appeared on ECM as a member of Cymin Samawatie's group Cyminology on Saburi in 2011), as well as an accomplished composer, this 32-year old pianist seems to have Jahnel does not feel the need to flourish his technical accomplishments and is content for technique work in service of the composition. The centrepiece of the album is an almost 14-minute composition ‘Moorland & Hill Land’, which gradually unfurls through varying textures and dynamics and unhurriedly makes its point, while perhaps his most impressive composition is ‘Sacred Silence’.