If jazz is the music of sweet certain surprise, then Lockheart is the man for you. His last two Edition releases featured his sax in duet with Roger Sayer's organ, playing English church music on Salvator Mundi, while as a composer and leader, Days on Earth, mixing string arrangements and a sextet, had a Gil Evansian scope. But neither release will prepare you for the small group, electronics– driven delights of Dreamers. Reunited with drummer Dave Smith from In Deep days and with Tom Herbert who has been there for Lockheart from Polar Bear days, but now for the first time on electric bass, the newer edge is the synth and keyboard work of Elliot Galvin.

The statement is clear from the opening, eponymous title track. Elliot creates an almost retro Kraftwerk vibe, but when complemented by Lockheart's measured, resonant tenor, it gains an ‘English’, romantic filter, stirring memories of Bowie in Berlin. Smith and Herbert hold the line even as it all threatens to disintegrate as we wait in the lee of a dark and rain soaked Autobahn. Dylan Howe's Subterraneans project with Julian Siegal explored a similar world. ‘Weird Weather’ again drills down into a sci-fi-like keys world, like we’ve fallen into an out-take from a Tarkovsky movie. Lockheart's sax is broodily beautiful, on the lonely edge of melancholy over the scary, gothic keys vamp. By contrast, Lockheart's love of Wayne Shorter and Weather Report is evident on ‘Nature v Nurture’. Lockheart is lyrical on soprano, Elliot builds the textures Zawinul-style, while the Smith/Herbert axis keeps it all lithically locked down. The textures coalesce in a grand and joyous theme. Rock and Indie references abound, including a forelock tug to The Beatles (‘Marmalade Skies’) and Stereolab (‘Fluorescences’) but all is subsumed in Lockheart's composing skills and complete control of his sound world. Built from the past, but creating vivid potentials for the future, Dreamers is the stuff all good jazz is made of.