Pianist-composer Bärtsch’s well- received Kings Place residency at last year’s London Jazz Festival provided an opportunity to hear a version of this new band as well as the long running and much-loved Ronin. They are different, though remain wedded by the power of repetition and subtle shifts in harmony and meter. While the latter group makes much of the hard crunch of electric instruments and backbeats borne of Bärtsch’s interest in funk and hip-hop, this acoustic ensemble capitalises on the icier timbres of strings and percussion, straying mildly into more overtly Reichian territory on occasion. Opting for a very distilled, limpid, often spacious sound canvas, the pianist hammers out edgy left hand bass lines and punches right hand trills with all of the eerie intent of a ghost story soundtrack, the effect of which is enhanced by the prods and purrs of the strings. Although at times a discreet presence, Sha’s bass clarinet and contrabass clarinet are a vital element of the group insofar as they shore up the low end all the while ensuring the fluidity and lightness of touch of an ensemble voice that, for the most part, is bold rather than bulky. Bärtsch may be the leader, but Mobile is a band in which the whole is greater than the sum of the not inconsiderable parts. This makes for a satisfactory debut.