On her latest eight-track album, London-based Swiss pianist and composer Fabienne Ambuehl crafts a mesmerising soundscape that seamlessly blends songs and instrumentals, with the unerringly fine rhythmic foundation provided by bassist Matt Ridley and drummer John Scott. Album opener ‘New Ones’ resonates with a distinctly Methenyesque quality, featuring Ambuehl’s wordless vocalese and the wonderful playing of guitarist Ant Law, and conjuring images of vast open spaces. Featuring music and lyrics by Ambuehl, ‘Immaculate Rain’ perhaps best distils the album’s essence of landscape and place. Based on the briefest of Emily Dickinson poems, consisting of three sets of rhyming couplets plus a single, standalone final line (“Say – Sea – Take Me!”), Ambuehl’s crystalline vocals light up ‘My River’. Other standouts include ‘Timeline’, a gently lilting ballad written during lockdown, the rolling, pleasingly bluesy groove of ‘Soft Days’, and ‘Nihil’, which features the fluid guitar playing of Tom Ollendorff and highlights Ambuehl’s nuanced arranging skills. The concluding title track, opening with a gorgeous piano prelude and closing with D.H. Lawrence’s words, offers a contemplative counterpoint to modern life’s frenetic pace. Recorded at Livingston Studios in North London, the album sounds terrific and delivers an impressively immersive musical experience.