Recorded live at The Oxford in Kentish Town, London, back in autumn 2008, this set of three free-improv tunes hasn't exactly been rush-released. The trio that play them – led by the estimable altoist Martin Speake, with the wonderful Oren Marshall doing much more than parping the bass parts on tuba and drummer Mark Sanders providing a vast array of textural details – don't exactly rush to achieve their musical effects, either. The handsome packaging is adorned with four quotations, one of them by Steve Coleman: “Sonny Rollins once told me ‘I think there are two kinds of music: that which expands and that which contracts. I want to be part of the tradition that expands’.” Well, Speake and his collaborators are part of that same expanding tradition, able to invest 24 minutes in opening cut ‘Your Sweet Melody’ and to journey to the beautifully achieved climax via a passage of near-silence. The titles of the tracks were suggested by a note left for the performers by two French women who'd clearly enjoyed the proceedings.