There's a meteorological moodiness about this disc from Kristjan Randalu that's at once passionate and studied. The trio – comprising pianist Randalu, guitarist Ben Monder and drummer Markku Ounaskari – kick things off with ‘Forecast’, which begins simply if forebodingly before spinning off into more elaborate musical territory, twisting yet contained, structured yet unpredictable. This is the Estonian's debut recording as a leader on ECM. No label, in both conceptual and production terms, does atmosphere better, so Randalu, a student of both the late John Taylor and Django Bates, could hardly have found a better home. ‘Lumi I’ has Monder's guitar lowering with stormy intent and Ounaskari painting in unfathomable depths of texture and colour. Sinister tones inflect ‘Escapism’ and the two parts of ‘Adaption’. This is not easy listening, or music to put listeners at ease – not that it's without lyrical grace, quasi-hummable passages and flashes of intense brightness. But you'd hardly expect maximum singalong capability from an album bearing the ruminatively existential title of Absence, would you?