First there was Flea’s surprising (and richly satisfying) departure from the funk-rock day job on , then Jeff Parker’s predictably stellar ETA IVtet workout and, most recently, SML’s brilliantly spacious . Recorded with Indiana-rooted drummer Ben Lumsdaine and trumpeter John Raymond, maintains their strong winning streak.

Butterss, Raymond, and Lumsdaine may not have recorded together before in this exact combination, but the roots of their collaboration goes back more than a decade. In some ways, the trio shares a fair chunk of their MO with Butterss’ work in SML and with Parker’s ETA IVtet. The music heard on is likewise totally improvised, with minimal overdubbing or post-production tweaking allowed – even the shape- and sound-bending effects via pedals and processing that make their presence felt over the course of the album were applied at the source. In this case, however, the trio cooked up their improvisations in an LA studio rather than live on stage.

In lesser hands, such a risky set-up could easily crumble into competitively busy noodling, with each musician trying to claim as much of the available room for their individual showing-off as possible. Butterss, Raymond, and Lumsdaine have a radically different idea. positively savours the mood-enhancing spaces between the notes, allowing the proceedings to develop a spacious, infectious pull where the emerging patterns and motifs are gradually accentuated and foregrounded with hypnotic results.

For evidence, see how Raymond’s forlorn trumpet digs into the crevices of Lumsdaine’s subtly drum 'n' bass-hued beats on standout track “Parallax”, which somehow manages to combine fathomless melancholy with a robustly assertive clatter that's closer to the ethos of EDM than chin-stroking jazz appreciation. For variety, the trio follow that up with the weightless ambient hum of “Serene” and the bass-led slowburn crawl of the title track. There are subtle echoes of erstwhile Northern Spy labelmates The Necks here, only with piano exchanged for the smoky cadences of Raymond’s trumpet.

captures the impressively flab-free and purposeful sound of the three musicians conjuring captivating melodies, rhythms and patterns intuitively, purely in the moment, without the safety net of an agreed musical roadmap to fall back on. The result is one of those unshowy, alchemical gems that somehow manages to show something new on every listen.