When does Snarky Puppy bassist/bandleader/composer in chief Michael League sleep? It's something to ponder while listening to their latest studio opus that was recorded and filmed live in Dordrecht, Netherlands at Het Energiehuis last April amid the band's hectic touring schedule, and is the first of no less than three albums (Family Dinner Vol.2 in September and Empire Central in early 2016) to be released in the next 12 months. Sylva marks an expansion, if such a thing were possible, of their already multi-layered sound, with both Snarky and Metropole Orkest under the baton of Jules Buckley resulting in some 60 musicians seamlessly combining like some well-oiled juggernaut. The accompanying live DVD of the entire ensemble performing only serves to underscore the enormity of this achievement. League's stylistic palette has already retooled classic P-Funk, Weather Report and Headhunters for the 21st century, bolting on slabs of snarling sub-bass and hard-hitting attitudinal bite of feisty electronica-into-fusion. Thus Sylva kicks off with the mutant Mad Men-esque theme ‘Sinatra’ that's all Henry Mancini on the rocks, sloshing around with painterly washes of strings and a sashaying pizzicato hook. ‘Flight’ gets into more familiar territory with its military snare banging out a hip hop beat, while flutes and Moog synths swoop in unison above and a Hammond wheezes below. ‘Atchafalaya’ is a New Orleans street brass band on steroids as tubas get the funk out on the brassiest of ‘lead’ bass lines, which balloon into a sub-Zeppelin rock out. The album's centrepiece ‘The Curtain’ shape-shifts over the course of its 15 minutes from brooding string surge intro, to melancholic trumpet solo, to face-slappingly fat orchestral electro funk into a sweet classical piano coda. ‘Gretel’ and the highly dynamic 19-minute ‘The Clearing’ traverse equally broad sonic terrain. In fact this is typical of a band that give the lie to the idea that young listeners today don't have the attention span to absorb lengthy and involving works like this – they just need to be compellingly and convincingly delivered – and Sylva does just that and then some.