This is the first studio album from the heavyweight NYC trio of Whit Dickey, William Parker and Matthew Shipp in nearly 30 years – since Shipp’s Circular Temple was released way back in 1992 – but it feels like three close and deep-thinking associates picking up on a conversation that’s been going on all along.

From the very first gracefully restrained moments – the low beating of a tom, pensive piano and thoughtfully placed bass notes – it’s abundantly clear that these three masters are really listening. Throughout, there’s a scrupulous avoidance of blustering free-for-all as the trio attend to spontaneous delicacies that are constantly evolving and changing as the music seeks new, freshly minted shapes and flavours. Motifs solidify, assert themselves as short-lived swells of activity and then quickly dissolve. There’s a sense of perpetual transformation. The quality of musicianship is phenomenal, as piano, bass and drums circle each other in tight, complex orbits, one moment tentatively cryptic, the next questing and determined. It’s enough to make you believe in humans all over again.