Yussef Kamaal's 2017 split into its constituent parts, so suddenly that either keyboardist Kamaal Williams or drummer Yussef Dayes alternately scrambled to fill outstanding bookings, remains mysterious at the time of writing. The loss of the partnership behind Black Focus soon after they were refused entry to the US as Trump's Muslim travel ban swirled, for reasons they branded “a discrimination against race and religion”, led many to draw their own conclusions about the time's hostile pressures. Regardless, the pair's soaring popularity as part of London's jazz resurgence juddered to an untimely halt. Williams, who wrote Black Focus, seems none the worse for the experience on this debut LP as bandleader. He's said he sees the piano as a drum, and The Return drops the piano trio format into an abstract landscape of rhythm and texture. The introductory greeting of ‘Salaam’ is languid and loping, till Joshua McKenzie (aka McKNasty) triggers the jittery drums which have typified London since jungle's inception a quarter-century ago when, with their echoes of bebop understood, they quickly migrated into British jazz. ‘Medina’ befits its namesake Saudi oasis town where Mohammed is buried, clearing a space for reverberating keyboard chimes and genial rhythms. ‘LDN Shuffle’ then tellingly contrasts hometown to holy site, its claustrophobia deepened by Mansur Brown's guitar squall. The harp-like strums of Williams' keyboard on ‘Broken Theme’ and tough funk of ‘Rhythm Commission’ have roots in fusion's spiritual end. Mostly, though, this resembles a minor Peckham Picasso, compressing jazz and hip hop into alien forms.