Not many people namecheck Henry Cow these days. Not enough people, IMHO. But Bristol-based saxophonist Kevin Figes does in talking about the kinds of musical inspiration that he now has in view: there's Luciano Berio and Witold Lutoslawski to look forward to as well. On this particular disc, his fifth, the spirit of Henry Cow's fellow prog/jazz rockers Soft Machine looms large, perhaps unsurprisingly given that Figes began his saxophone studies with Elton Dean. Two tracks here pay homage to the Softs: ‘Toothpick’, which is based on Mike Ratledge's composition ‘Teeth’, and ‘Sea View’, which deploys a sequencer at beginning and end and briefly also suggests Terry Riley (or perhaps even The Who's ‘Baba O'Riley’). ‘Strange Place’ and ‘Soft Escape Bed’, featuring vocal contributions from Emily Wright (and Figes himself), are rather haunting, though in different ways – the first is a tribute to a 1970s horror movie, the second inspired by the route to visit his critically ill dad. ‘Guiding Light’ finds the quartet in mellow mood. ‘My aim is to produce personal music in a fearless and evolving way,’ says Figes. ‘So now, I'm moving on again.’ The music on Changing Times is a journey worth joining Figes and his collaborators on. There's plenty of good road ahead.