Mick and Freestone each had very different lockdown experiences, yet through the duo format they have created an album that is a shared vision yet celebrates difference.

It’s summed up in their birdsongs. Freestone’s ‘Birds of Paradise’ evolved from listening to the birdsongs of the Canaries where she spent much of lockdown. Full of fleet flute, with a Brazilian zest, it’s rich and colourful. In counterpoint, Mick’s ‘The Crows’, from birds watched in London’s Wood Green (a distinctly urban area, despite the name) has the piano and sax doubled and troubled and not a little squally (yet not without affection). Of course, Mick and Freestone are avian themselves: Alcyona means kingfisher, Tori is Japanese for bird, so it’s no surprise many of the songs fly and sing in noisy joy.

‘El Mar des Nubes’ has Freestone evoking a moonlit walk in Tenerife and as with ‘Birds of Paradise’ it’s fabulously complemented by Beraha’s vox. But Mick’s ‘Detachment’ is darker, laced with mid-Eastern rhythms recalling her work with Natacha Atlas. And Atlas and Beraha combine on the extraordinary cry of Mick’s ‘Who Are We Now?’, with Freestone divebombing on to Atlas’ ululations. But there’s also prankish humour. Food is never far from their thoughts (‘In the Fridge’), while ‘They Can’t Take that Away from Me’ is a nose-thumbing at Brexit, with Mick plonking through ‘Tea for Two’ beneath the melody. Birds of paradise, yet utterly grounded in our earthly world. An album of the year.