At the quirkily-titled inaugural We Jazz festival in Helsinki, the AR Quartet (formerly the Artturi Rönkä Quartet) won the We Jazz Rising Star Award and followed it up with the Artist of the Year award at the Pori Jazz festival in 2013. They represented Finland in the prestigious Young Nordic Jazz Comets competition in 2012 and won second prize in the Jazz Hoeilaart competition in Belgium. Quite something for a band whose combined ages are less than that of Sonny Rollins. Their debut album gives a good indication of the group's range and, it must be said, demonstrate their slightly terrifying ability and maturity for a group so young. It's difficult to stand out with an instrumental configuration that has been done to death since the 1950s, and preceded by some of the finest performances in jazz by the likes of Rollins, John Coltrane, Stan Getz, Wayne Shorter and, well, fill in the spaces. But this group have a sparky sound of their own, plus some well crafted originals by Rönkä such as ‘Night Songs’, ‘By Rail’, ‘Ground X’ and ‘Outoa’ that are a cut above so many originals these days that you can't help thinking the best is yet to come from this accomplished young ensemble.