While Kit Downes' Mercury-nominated debut as a leader, Golden, directly followed his 2009 start with Troyka, the latter's guitarist Chris Montague has hesitated to be a frontman. Leading the Troyka Orchestra at 2013's Cheltenham Festival showed his ambitious range, and this reconfigured trio, with bassist Ruth Goller replacing Troyka drummer Joshua Blackmore alongside Downes, is deliberately stretched thin, its airy skein partly woven from sonic absence. ‘Warmer Than Blood’ is inspired by a Fiona Sampson poem about fear and family, with Downes' piano tracking cautiously around some eerie clearing, uneasily mixed bass and guitar trailing behind, their rhythmic buzz becoming a high-strung heartbeat, the song's mystery remaining unsolved. ‘FTM’ takes Montague's newborn child's initials in an unexpectedly honest parental memento, ending in panic attack piano. ‘The Internet’, too, is edgy, compared to ‘C Squad’'s antic stroll through the band's Chilterns home. ‘Moira’ is Montague's solo tribute to his grandmother, its resonant notes enduring then fading like well-lived lives. ‘Rendered’, commissioned for the opening of Hendrix's flat in what was also Handel's home, sees Downes acting as pathfinder, right hand confidently clearing the way along a melodically pretty trail, ending an album of open yet busily shaped terrain.