It’s been a while since the Emily Francis Trio’s debut The Absent (2015), and Luma’s leap forward illustrates the ever-morphing status of the piano trio now. GoGo Penguin’s minimalist, hard-hitting splicing of Esbjörn Svensson and Aphex Twin was 2015’s cutting edge, but the shockwaves of EST’s arena-friendly rock dynamics have faded now, as the most interesting European jazz has instead reconnected to black roots and branches, from Afrobeat to grime. Though Francis saw EST as an unsuspecting Dorset teen, her generation of jazz students leaned more into prog, fashionable again after its punk defenestration. Also finding successive inspiration in Brad Mehldau and Robert Glasper’s hip-hop fusion, neo-prog king Steven Wilson’s keyboardist – and Miles alumnus – Adam Holzman and the increasingly electronic New York school sanctified by playing on Bowie’s Blackstar have become her touchstones. Luma is a very 1980s prog iteration, all post-Vangelis synth-scapes, jazz-funk riffs and gated drums, not interested in swing so much as harder-edged, even clunky funk and electronic rhythms, sometimes neighbouring Moses Boyd’s solo adventures. Francis’ interest in layered, textured sound is enhanced by US co-producer Robert Kingsland, a favourite of Donny McCaslin and big rock and R&B names, whose presence on a UK jazz album is ambitious and stylistically appropriate. ‘The Kite And The Crow’ uses prog’s conceptual tendencies in a three-part structure inspired by seeing a red kite harassing a nesting crow, its pensive, gliding intro followed by brittle, clashing keys and triumphant ascent above the fray. ‘Broken Kingdom Pt. 1’ and ‘Broken Kingdom Pt. 4’ show the Trio’s range. The former’s bright, synth-led soundscapes settle down to slow bass skitters, dry snare cracks and Francis’s bluesy riffs. Its seven-minute sequel is dominated by the whispered, shivering aura around Jamie Murray’s wind-chime cymbals, showing a subtly experimental, emotional facet to this impishly intelligent, mostly mellow band.