Steph Richards is a young Brooklyn-based, Canadian trumpeter-composer whose already found her niche working under titans of experimental music such as Henry Threadgill, Anthony Braxton, John Zorn and David Byrne. On her second recording as leader, Take The Neon Lights following last year's electronica-charged Fullmoon, she takes an innovative approach to the sonic possibilities of her instrument. The best example might be her ‘prepared’ trumpet on ‘Brooklyn Machine’, on which she removes a valve slide and adds a mute, so that sound escapes from two different sources. The punky track's spikily insistent riff sounds like it's played by two jousting trumpeters (one in a high register and the other low) with superhero reflexes. But it's no novelty act. With a restless, conversational tone, she draws from a super-extended sonic palette of animated stutters, smears, slides and more. The nods to Dave Douglas' angular downtown riffage through to harmon-muted early jazz connects her to New York City as is referenced by her composition's track titles, quoting from the poetry of radical literary giants Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes through to Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, while her bumpily erratic stream of narrative pays implicit tribute. I suspect we're going to be hearing a lot more from Steph Richards.