There is a long, rich history of collaborations between producers-electronic artists and improvising musicians, and this is certainly one of note. BlankFor.ms occupies the former berth and pianist Jason Moran and drummer Marcus Gilmore the latter, creating a whole that is greater than the sum of the considerable parts.

As is the case with the best joint projects, there is no obvious sense of hierarchy or dividing line between roles, and the assumption that BlankFor.ms would provide the regular beats and Moran and Gilmore the irregular sounds is emphatically silenced by any number of tracks in which there is a morphing dynamic exchange between the triumvirate, primarily because while the players respond to tape loops and other pre-set materials the producer is artfully manipulating those responses on the fly. Digital timbres swiftly change from squelchy and rhythmic to gaseous and choral, giving the set a series of shifts and pivots that take it from gently skewed dance riffs to lush ambient dreamscapes, such as ‘Eighth Pose’, which gracefully glides between lento and moderato to astutely vary levels of tension.

Elsewhere, the electronics are like deep exhalations spreading out over solidly icy piano chords to attain the grandeur of a classical composer making do without horns or strings. Indeed the audio landscape crafted by BlankFor.ms, Moran and Gilmore is one full of implied orchestral richness as well as the pinball interplay that defines the tradition of small group jazz.

This is trio music hinged on the immediacy of a finger on a laptop as well as a piano, and, as is the case in the work of roughly comparable artists, such as Gerald Cleaver, Ikue Mori and Tyondai Braxton, man and machine appear to be as close as body and soul.