Pericopes + 1, comprising three musicians from three disparate cities – New York, Paris and Milan – have picked up favourable reviews in the jazz press for their first two albums, These Human Beings (2015) and Legacy (2018). Their latest release, Up, is premised in the laudable hope that people will lift up their heads and enhance their perspective instead of constantly looking down at their phones. The compositions too come with messages, ‘La Rentrée’ (‘life joy’) or ‘Wonderland’ (‘simplicity and space’). There does seem, however, a disjunction between conception and delivery. This stems primarily from a monotony of tone, and there's not much rhythmic or harmonic interest; it's rather like being cornered at a social gathering (remember those?) in a onesided conversation with someone holding forth on a subject like the relative merits of Tapatio and Tabasco sauces. You very quickly decide it's the least interesting subject in the world, and your mind races to formulate an exit strategy so as not to hurt anybody's feelings, which I'm doing now.