Double-bassist Petr Tichý is a chameleonic presence on the Prague jazz and hybrid improv scene. He teaches, plays jazz and tango in a trio with the guitarist Paul Novotný and the Belarusian bayan whizz Aliaksandr Yasinski as well as working as a duo with the vocalist and body percussionist Ridina Ahmedová.

This time around, the Romanovská, Tichý and Hrubrý trio joined forces with Hana Blažíková, a Prague-born soprano and harpist of considerable accomplishment and reputation in the realms of baroque and renaissance music. Blažíková brings a quiver of fresh congruities and convergences. Western art music was always more than fixed composition and scores. Many of its leading composers were also formidable improvisers and left places in their scores for extemporisation.

Here Blažíková adds to that notable canon. Recorded in concert at the Church of the Annunciation in the southern Bohemian town of Dobrš, I Am One of Us Forever is like a secret garden of trippy musical sonorities and textures. The dance piece ‘Gion Kouta’ relates the passage of the seasons (no translation of the Japanese lyrics is provided) and begins as a graceful duet for koto and, singing in Japanese, Blažíková’s voice. It swells into a beautifully understated ensemble piece. Elsewhere melody tumbles with dissonance. ‘I Need Cracking’ and ‘Weather Source’ have jabs and flashes of cartoon mayhem straight out of the Carl Stalling Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies book. From the onset, with their 2018 debut It Was Right At, the trio boldly went… This masterpiece goes to even stranger places.