Incredibly, Rob Mazurek has now been making music for more than 30 years. Emerging from the 1990s Chicago scene, he's written more than 400 compositions and is featured on more than 70 recordings with many ensembles. His fluid unit Exploding Star Orchestra has been developing since 2005; the trumpeter-composer describes ESO as ‘the conceptual, compositional and philosophical centre of all my work… a life star of musical and visual ideas’.

In 2018 Jazz Fest Berlin invited Mazurek to present a new iteration of the ESO and Chicago label International Anthem took the opportunity to capture these new compositions. Mazurek channelled his arrangements through 11 (mostly IARC) musicians, commissioning long­time collaborator Damon Locks to do lyrics and vocals.

The result is the 10-track Dimensional Stardust, on which he succeeds in capturing the joyously spiritual, cosmic swirl of Sun Ra and Alice Coltrane; combining elements of avant­garde and free jazz, post-rock and contemporary classical with surprisingly accessible tunes. Despite being carefully assembled over time using modern technology, with the musicians often playing in isolation, this is holistic music, the playing emerging organically from Mazurek's tight arrangements. Soloists like Branch and flautist Nicole Mitchell are given full range to express themselves and the whole thing feels playful (yet at the same time deadly serious) and untrammelled by rule or convention. Proof positive that the spontaneous spirit of jazz and modern recording methods may not be mutually exclusive after all.