This album is an enormous achievement in so many ways, not least in that Sam Eastmond is the first British musician to have been entrusted with realising a selection of US maverick composer John Zorn’s 300 Bagatelles. It is also the first large ensemble interpretation of these works, the brief scoring of which is intended to permit both structure and freedom – always a challenge in bigger band arrangements.

In applying himself to the task, Eastmond has produced something truly awesome, a cavalcade of music that rides the paradoxes and juxtapositions of Zorn’s methodology with absolute assurance and delivers a properly integrated whole every time.

Each of the eight tracks is a suite in its own right – none is shorter than seven minutes – and each captures the elements of surprise and challenge that are the composer’s hallmarks This can be rooted in remorseless riffery, as in the James Bond-hinting ‘#198’, its inspired tenor solo from Asha Parkinson subsiding into dissipation before the groove re-emerges even more forcefully for Joel Knee’s disputational trombone. That narrative is eventually wrangled away by Moss Freed’s guitar which draws momentary breath before an incendiary tutti winds things up. ‘#2’, by contrast opens with a richly-textured brass chorale eventually swept aside by a raucous guitar, piano and drum explosion announcing Olly Chalk’s reflective piano solo. That, in turn, yields to an abrasive guitar-led disjuncture from Moss Freed … and that’s only the halfway point. Eastmond’s choice of participants is astute, a combination of Spike Orchestra stalwarts and new generation names, all with the discipline for ensemble work and the confidence to go free as appropriate.

Trumpeter Charlotte Keeffe is especially impressive, roistering her solo way through the changing contexts of ‘#78’ or steering a simmering duel with Freed’s guitar in ‘#101’. But this is overwhelmingly holistic music, whether stripped out solos or lushly orchestrated ensemble pieces, and it is Eastmond’s unerring judgement as arranger and bandleader that makes it such a truly excellent piece of work. He is also well served by Zorn’s regular engineer Marc Urselli for delivering a fulsome sound that unleashes an element of exhilaration that runs through the entire album.