This project is self-effacingly underpinned by bassist Huw V Williams, a sought after low-end virtuoso from North Wales, whose work includes sessions with Laura Jurd, Jim Black and even Super Furries' Gruff Rhys. Williams has long had an eye for the wider horizons, both artistically and geographically, and here he's reached out across our sadly sundered European borders to join forces with a cosmopolitan group of Berlin-based musicians.

Co-leader Jonathan Lindhorst contributes five of the nine compositions and is an imperious presence on tenor sax, with a voice that ranges from the powerfully austere (on his celebration of non-conformity ‘Rise Of The Grumbletonians’) to the gently lyrical (on the hushed, texturally abstract ‘Night Melody’). William's own bass is given generous solo space on his co-leader's composition ‘Gummi-Bear’ to demonstrate his rhythmic sophistication and intensely satisfying tone - deep and rich while also crisply accurate - and his playing is equally superb throughout. But neither man dominates the proceedings to obscure the fact that this is a real group creation, combining rigorously disciplined composition with wide-ranging textural experimentation and collective improvisation.

The prodigious Mark Pringle brings his contemporary classical chops to the sombre ‘Tone Clock’, while drummer Max Santner pilots the band securely though the swing of ‘Gummi-Bear’, the gnarly metric exercises of ‘November Tune’ and the twisted Euro-kitsch of ‘Venito's Bell And Phone’ with equal aplomb. There are references to the contemporary NYC experimentation of artists like Craig Taborn and Tony Malaby, but that confidence and swagger is combined with a distinct European sensibility to produce a very compelling statement that delivers a lot of depth across its appealingly compact running time.