Lage Lund’s latest release reunites the guitarist with the band he formed in 2014. Lund, resident in the US since 1995, was already well established. Since then, pianist Sullivan Fortner has won accolades for the sensitive fluency he brings to Cécile McLorin Salvant’s gigs and Matt Brewer and Tyshawn Sorey on bass and drums have helped reshape the piano-trio form.

Lund composed this album’s music during lockdown – the guitarist and his family were in Lund’s native Norway when restrictions were announced. Songtitles are based on his children’s home curriculum: “One day it would be about 'Elephants'”, explains Lund, “the next day 'The Stone Age'or 'Trees'.”

The set sticks closely to established songbook structures, but oblique melodies surrounded by wreaths of harmony, coupled with Lund’s precise phrasing and clean, full sound ensure each track has a personal touch. Piano and guitar merge empathetically, Fortner and Lund both solo with purpose and Brewer and Sorey are a throbbing undertow of counterpoint bass and brittle drums.

The album opens with the mid-tempo 'Cigarettes' and closes at a similar pace with 'Horses'. 'Bad Acrobat' is sprightly and 'Elephants'captures its title with the rhythms of a sedate dance, a light brush of electronica and a sense of the surreal. Overall, tempos are broadly in the middle range and the sonics, textural interplay and harmonic investigations rekindle memories of Billy Bauer and Lennie Tristano. Rhythms have contemporary thrust and there is much to admire in the detail, though the quartet only sporadically lifts off.