Tani Tabbal hails from a long line of Chicagoan drummers – Gene Krupa, Jo Jones, Tony Williams – who have all carved sounds to call their own out of the time-space continuum. Most often recognised for his work with Sun Ra, Roscoe Mitchell and David Murray, Tabbal's own trio – featuring Adam Siegel (alto saxophone) and Michael Bisio (bass) – has been an ongoing concern for the last decade, and this third album is exquisitely conceived and executed.

On the opening track ‘Arrested Confusion', Siegel proves to be an unusually probing and multifaceted improvisor, his network of ruminative lines thoughtfully wrapping themselves around an entire history of post-Charlie Parker alto saxophone, from Lee Konitz and Jimmy Lyons to Ornette Coleman and Paul Desmond. Siegel and Michael Bisio playing taut and inquisitive counterpoint, inching forwards like a delicately balanced game of Pick-up Sticks, dominates the second track, “Just Woke Up”. A subtle harmonic shift sideways from Bisio and Siegel flies solo, conjuring up melodic curves out of harmonics so delicate that they could crack at any moment.

Partly, you suspect, because he wants to hear Bisio and Siegel play, Tabbal is very generous with allotting the solo space, while remaining the music's all-seeing eye and impulse. The briefest shuffle, brushes caressing snare drum, can be all that is needed to coax the music into pursuing a new thought; his playing is spacious and acrobatic, incisive rather than fussy. ‘Midway Open' is an exercise in how little each musician needs to contribute to paint a pointillistic texture of hardly-there flicks and whispers. The penultimate track, “r.henri”, has the trio all inhabiting clearly defined terrain of their own, with Tabbal and Siegel intoning slow, disembodied sounds as Bisio floats super-fast inventions above. Tabbal allows himself an extended solo in the final track, calculating a maze of interlocking pulses and textures – after which there is little more anyone can add.