This is a concept album with a double concept, so to speak. Musically, the guiding principle is counterpoint, and philosophically, it is the age-old use of the tarot card to map five key perspectives on human existence: ‘The Present’, ‘Above’, ‘Below’, ‘The Past’, ‘The Future’. Saxophonist O'Dwyer invited his fellow players to contribute ideas based on precise card positions in the standard tarot lay-out, which, in turn, took a cue from Gilles Deleuze's book The Fold: Leibniz And The Baroque. The result is satisfying first and foremost because of the strong sense of spontaneity created amid the very precise musical framework, which does not appear as rigid as might have been expected. There is no discernible hierarchy in the instruments. The band is a shape-shifter. Saad Thamir's frame drumming and singing are as much in the frontline as O'Dwyer's reeds while Hawar's small skewer violin, its hard scrapes and skirls unfailingly vivid, also plays a big part in the arrangements. There is a strong resonance of classical Arabic music throughout the set, but instruments converge and diverge with a fluidity that exceeds that specific cultural reference point, perhaps occasionally suggesting the subversive streak of Lebanese oud player Rabih Abou-Khalil, especially when entwining timbres create a kind of mysterioso imagery. Memorable moments include the bass clarinet purring around the inventively harsh breath manipulations of the saxophone and the deliciously unsettling whir of the violin piercing the bulbous swell of the tuba. An intriguing exploration of the boundary between composition and improvisation that is given added substance by the very provocative sub-text of destiny and designs.