Much of the beauty of the new London jazz scene has been the music's reunion with black listeners, a replenishment sought and welcomed by its players. GoGo Penguin were an earlier and parallel phenomenon, Manchester's answer to EST, especially (and Snarky Puppy, maybe), in their heavy-riffing, danceable splicing of jazz, Aphex Twin's avant-electronica and, above all, the minimalism which links Philip Glass, Kind of Blue and House. The clubland they border is more European than the grime scene absorbed in the capital, but if they can appear outlying, overtaken pioneers, an upcoming [since postponed] Brixton Academy gig shows success growing regardless.

This fourth album is a response to thirtysomething maturity's deaths and births, with correspondingly complex songs fusing disparate pieces. It also partially solves the question of how a piano trio philosophically aligned to minimalism's looping limits can progress.

Chris Illingworth's piano sinks mournful ambivalence akin to Derrick May's Detroit techno into the foundations of ‘1_#’ and ‘Totem’. ‘Kora’ then expands a seemingly limited palette, as muted piano mimics the titular African instrument's strings, before merging into clubland thunder. Nick Blacka's bass shows similar tonal and emotional range, joining Rob Turner's equally subtle drums when crystalline piano droplets rain on the restless rhythm bed of ‘Embers’. ‘To the Nth’ is the clearest example of musical sections soldered in the manner of a dodgy garage chop-shop, though with more honest results, as dirty bass interacts with yearning piano, and GoGo Penguin's constituent parts intuitively interlace. The closing ‘Don't Go’ confirms the nuanced feeling beyond their headbanging gigs, foreswearing a climax to fade away. Their cool MO will always restrict them. But, like jazz's New Orleans founders, GoGo Penguin's music now suits both parties and funerals.