London-based improv ensemble The Remote Viewers have previously created music with dystopian undercurrents, which given that free improv ordinarily flirts with the utopian ideal of fashioning something new each time, has represented an intriguing spin on business as usual. Their 2013 album City of Nets involved drum pre-sets and samples of urban bleakness – and a much larger gathering than this two saxophone and bass incarnation of the group. David Petts leads from behind his tenor saxophone and you can’t help but wonder whether their title implies that the dystopian fears of previous albums have now come to pass: we’re turning inwards as a nation and have failed to learn from history. Musically, though, the album revisits techniques and tics familiar from previous excursions. Pett has a knack for creating tightly structured, note-specific charts that establish a context and atmosphere around which improvisers can operate. ‘The Machines Must Stay’ finds John Edwards circling around cycles of notes as the saxophones punctuate with composed motor-rhythms and pockets of free play. Fine music, in both conception and execution.