One of the significant exponents of the alto saxophone in the 1990s and 2000s, Kenny Garrett has long taken an interest in the world of machines and production, which is not surprising, given his work with Miles Davis in the electric late 1980s. This new collaboration with programmer-pianist Svoy could be seen as a distant cousin of Tutu or Amandla insofar as Garrett’s horn is the lead voice cast against the beats created by Svoy, loosely in the role of Marcus Miller. The results are interesting, but rather inconsistent.

On one hand, the duo hit all the right notes on tracks such as ‘Ascendence’ and ‘Divergence Tu-Dah’, both of which have the hard pulsating rhythms and ferocity of timbre that characterise the best computer-based music such as hip-hop, house and drum ‘n’ bass, with the funky, brawny loops reflecting a deep dive into the world of plug-ins as well as a desire to plug in while playing.

The last piece, in which Garrett’s saxophone is so heavily distorted that it comes as a thrash rock guitar being scraped across a bed of crunchy gravel, is exhilarating.

On the other hand, some of the softer, more tender soundscapes are too neutered, or in the case of a reprise of the standard ‘My Funny Valentine’ the romanticism of the melodic line and drifting, dry ice textures don’t sit well together, so that the colliding worlds that are interesting elsewhere cancel each other out. Garrett and Svoy have a creative chemistry with potential but it needs development, hopefully before AI makes all that is real unreal.