Although announced as the latest boy wonder trumpeter a good 10 years ago, Scott's star hasn't quite risen as high as the initial buzz suggested. At one point he seemed stuck in a rut of his own making with a sound shaped by classical and rock influences that satisfied and grated in equal measure. However this album is arguably his best to date and immediately stands out for its wide sonic range, and that can be partially attributed to the use of newly designed horns, the ‘sirenette’ and ‘reverse flugelhorn’. Even more impressive is the writing and arranging, which consolidates the more explicit black diaspora direction in which Scott had been hinting at by weaving together West African, Brazilian and Caribbean rhythms all the while retaining some of the flavour of his New Orleans heartland. The percussive bed of the music also offers great timbral novelty by way of Joe Dyson Jnr's ‘Pan African drums’, which sounds like some kind of customised kit inspired by the same spirit of recycling discarded industrial objects that gave birth to steel orchestras in Trinidad. The result is music that has a primal, dawn-of-time earthiness and an urbane sophistication with no sense of discord between the two. A subtle use of electronics as well as the wonderfully ethereal flute of Elena Pinderhughes brings a further impressionistic slant to the arrangements but Scott, soloing with much more focused economy than was previously the case, stamps his character on the session in no uncertain terms. A very strong statement from a musician who is steadily justifying the hype.