While developing an illustrious profile since 1997 as the bassist in the Branford Marsalis quartet, Eric Revis' achievements as an ensemble leader have tended to fall a little under the radar. It might also be that although deeply grounded in tradition especially its rhythm element, as a composer he's straight out of the contemporary avant-garde.

Over the best part of the last decade or so, he's released a handful of albums, alongside a diverse array of left-field luminaries such as Ken Vandermark, Jason Moran and Andrew Cyrille on the discerningly-curated, Lisbon-based avant-jazz label Clean Feed.

On Slipknots Through a Looking Glass his regular acoustic piano trio of pianist Kris Davis, who owns the release label Pyroclastic, and drummer Chad Taylor plus a double-barrelled horn configuration.

Original material has been collected from the same source – a 2017 commission residence at the Kykuit estate in Pocantino Hills, New York – as Revis' two contributions to Marsalis' 2019 Grammy-nominated album The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul. Revis is interested here in the tension between lateral-thinking compositional processes and the instinctive musicianship of his ensemble.

On opener ‘Baby Renfro’, Revis sets up a sonically-intriguing percussive groove with his lyrical, woody-toned bass synched with prepared piano and pungent sax harmonies, while ‘SpÆ’ is even more percussive in texture, Davis' spaced-out keys and Chad Taylor's mbira's African mantra combine in a mesmerizing, dreamy effect. On ‘Earl and the three-fifths Compromise’ a loping bass, snaky horn lines and ghostly piano sound like a soundtrack to a feline prowling for prey at night.

The honking metal-jazz of ‘Shutter’ comes as a bolt from the blue and features the underappreciated Bill McHenry in feral Brotzman-like mode, whereas ‘House of Leaves’ has Revis hypnotically weaving his bass around an empathetic organic group dialogue of abstract gestures and pointillist motifs. The free jazz blow­out of ‘Vimen’ might contrast violently with next-door track ‘When I Become Nothing’ and its deliciously languid Mingus-like horn theme, but the album works very naturally as a whole.