By no means as well known as they should be, Tied & Tickled Trio has a proven skill in combining accomplished composition and improvisation with elements of the soundtrack tradition and electronica. This interesting collaboration with American drum legend Hart has its moments, though it doesn't quite measure up to the creative heights that they hit on 2001's Electronic Avenue Tapes. On the plus side, the combo crafts engrossing ambiences in which bristling drones and sundry digital gurgles artfully foreshadow well-scored horns where trombone and flute break away in concise, compressed figures to add effective light and shade to the central melody. Tapping squarely into the Asianin flected modal jazz template of Alice Coltrane or Yusef Lateef, TTT creates statements of considerable depth on pieces such as ‘The Three Doors Part 1’. On the minus side, the set loses direction as it unfolds, and although the variety of tempo and texture is admirable, the arranging focuses too heavily on atmosphere, on sonic richness, at the expense of narrative substance. It becomes underwhelming to hear musicians of this calibre skirting around an ostinato bass figure and a moody but flat horn riff, when past work reveals that they are capable of taking a far more developmental approach to an arrangement. It also feels as if Hart is under-deployed on occasion and that something more artistically substantial may evolve if the collaboration is reprised.