Norwegian guitarist Emil Storløkken Åse’s two previous recordings were abrasive dystopian sci-fi epics, the latest – May 2024’s Electric Cave – being a solo guitar-plus-electronics effort. Bewilderingly, therefore, Intergalloptic Roundtrip opens with an impressively orchestrated pastiche of Morricone in full spaghetti mode, tympani and bells included. That’s no clue to what follows, however, despite a track called 'A Fistful of Unsettled Matter': that actually is a slow burning trip-hop thing with Åse’s twang guitar looming over Jenny Frøysa’s lowering bass synth and August Glännestrand’s fractured drumming. Åse’s bigger influences seem to be 1970s fusion/prog rock guitarists like Hendrix or Zappa, notably the former on the epic 'Intergalloptic', as Glännestrand’s urgent drumming also recalls Robert Wyatt’s Soft Machine heyday.

Later still, the lyrically yearning payout to 'Horseback Landing' has the poignant slide-style of Duane Allman. But what could have been simply an exercise in referential nostalgia gets its more contemporary texture from Frøysa’s deployment of bass clarinet and baritone sax, sometimes electronically enhanced. Her rich tones have real character, whether providing solid bassline riffs or imaginative soloing, notably on the all-too brief baroque-alluding 'Brax'. All taken together, though, they sound like a blast to see live.