Guitarist Mike de Souza is best known as one third of Big Bad Wolf, a young British group exploring the crossover between jazz, alt-rock and leftfield pop who released an excellent debut called Pond Life back in 2017. Some of the tracks on Slow Burn, de Souza's own debut album, come from a similar place (he cites Radiohead and Deerhoof as important influences). ‘Living With Nuns’ introduces crisscrossing guitar lines, spacey electronics and wordless vocals before melting into a jazz free-up. The gritting groove of ‘Nunchucks’ gives way to a hazy, electronically manipulated bass solo. Elsewhere there are introspective jazz ballads (‘Morning Mind’), passages of lilting acoustic guitar (‘Going Places’) and Messiaenic glimmers: ‘Late For Breakfast’ makes atmospheric use of Olivier Messiaen's modes of limited transposition to create an unsettling, almost apocalyptic soundworld. De Souza is an engaging and creative improviser and a clever composer. I especially like his use of groove games and subtle rhythmic shifts. It makes his music feel as though it's constantly evolving. You're never quite sure where you're headed next.