Keshav Batish, drummer, tabla and sitar virtuoso, is equally versed in Hindustani music and jazz. Here, he blends the two traditions with a young sax-and-rhythm quartet which he leads from the drummer's chair. The rhythmic tensions and modal shapes of Hindustani music are subtly drawn, covers of Ornette Coleman's ‘Police People’ and Thelonious Monk's ‘We See’ signpost left-field jazz and the darker tones of the blues add an original twist.

The album opens with ‘Binaries in Cycles 1’, a chop and change theme built on a Hindustani mode – here polyrhythmic cymbals and fast walking bass switch to fusion riffs and single stroke beats. Elsewhere, the twisty ‘Count Me In’, based on the ‘Morning Rag’, shifts from prowl to fusion peak and ‘Let Go’, based on the ‘twilight rag’, slow-burns from ballad to fury. The intensity of ‘Wingspan’ ebbs and flows and ‘Gayatri’ has the solemnity of an ancient chant.

Bassist Aaron Caceres dovetails with the leader and is equally solid on fusion and swing, and though pianist Lucas Hahn's solos are somewhat generic, Shay Salhov's distinctive alto sax brings Batish's vision to life with a warm, emotionally controlled, post-Steve Coleman voice.