Tied as this project is to the long-running relationship between jazz and Indian music, leader/alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa told his fellow trio members to think of Agrima as a ‘rock album’. The term is pertinent as the ultimate achievement of the session is precisely the riff or hook sensibility of several of the compositions, which nonetheless do not compromise on the rhythmic ingenuity that the ensemble displayed so compellingly on 2008's Apti. ‘Showcase’ is a case in point. Taken at a breezy mid-tempo the piece ambles around a languorous theme that Abassi underpins with a minor blues bassline which he bookends with lightly scraped chords, giving the song the kind of gravity and levity that often defines the best of popular music. The leader's horn plays pithy, breezy phrases that ride well on the relaxed carriage of the song, but as much as the ambiance is unassuming the solos are marked by an expressive magnitude that takes the work well beyond the commonplace. Peppered throughout the set are passing drizzles of electronic effects, a kind of furtive upper-range patter, that broaden the sound canvas and lend a subtle orchestral favour to the music. Abassi's guitar has an aerial, sylph-like grace, especially on his softer, less harmonically complex ostinatos, while Mahanthappa's horn is characteristically incisive, the stinging tone given an even more nasal, almost Jew's harp quality by some laptop trickery. But the key development in the ensemble is Weiss' integration of drum kit alongside tablas, which strengthens the low register and up-sizes the overall body of the ensemble. There is a mild echo of some of the work that Charlie Mariano, a very different kind of saxophonist, did with Karnataka College Of Percussion in the 1980s, but IPC has a hard, taut, combustible identity very much of its own.