Composer/conductor Miho Hazama’s orchestral jazz palette ranges from the snappy riffs and canny voicings of West Coast jazz to the caracteristic snicks and snares of contemporary hip-hop.

Modernist blares are in the mix, as are sheens of strings and modal scales, all artfully blended into the narrative twists of a single track.

This album, her third with the m-unit ensemble, opens with brass duelling over funky bass and strings and horns pirouetting over a spritely 4/4. Solos emerge with all manner of support, textures thicken and fade, the pulse changes and motifs re-appear in a different guise. ‘Abeam’ works brilliantly, held together by the iron logic of Hazama’s composer’s craft.

Elsewhere, ‘A Monk in Ascending And D’ is a mellow feature for multiple voicings and textural range, the playful ‘Can’t Hide Love’ has a strange Latin twist and alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins guests on ‘From Life Comes Beauty’.

The album’s centrepiece is the three-movement ‘Exoplanet Suite’. Each section has many thrills and ‘Movement I: Elliptical Orbit’ has bassist Christian McBride as a guest. But the album’s strength lies in Hazama’s thrilling scores and a tight, committed and sensitive band. Saxophonist Steve Wilson and vibist James Shipp are among several who have worked with Hazama since the m-unit recorded their first album, Journey to Journey in 2013, and it shows.