The sixth installment of a song cycle started in 2007, Seven Storey Mountain VI is the kind of dense, absorbing, at times harrowing, work that speaks of an artist with vision and the courage of his convictions. To paraphrase Wooley's thought- provoking liner notes, this is confrontational music on a number of levels. He is probing the limits of his instrument, towards a technique of ‘sighing, shrieking and mumbling,’ steering away from conventional ways of conceiving and scoring material, and, perhaps most importantly, passing comment on the most dehumanising injustice against other human beings deemed minorities: women and Blacks.

The result is a 45-minute suite, which is predicated both on the constancy of cycles and loops and the dramatic effect of their disruption and transformation. The initial series of glinting keyboard riffs retracts to bell-like chords that are engulfed by a brewing storm of guitar, drums, strings and brass, whereby Wooley pursues his ideal and creates a surge of undefined, unidentifiable, unfiltered sound, making inventive use of amplification and attack which is wounded and wounding in emotional impact. Finally, this crescendo gives way to a female choir that sings a devastatingly fraught version of Peggy Seeger's ‘Reclaim The Night’ before the closing chant of ‘you can't scare me.’ Legendary engineer Ron Saint German has captured this array of sounds to perfection, respecting the precise layers in the patchwork while conveying its violence and tenderness. The result is a work in which musical ingenuity and deep humanity sit in an uncommon, audacious balance.