Like many of his generation, Manchester’s Matthew Halsall came to jazz after hearing a DJ drop a sample into the mix (in his case Pharoah Sanders’s You’ve Got to Have Freedom). Unlike most, Halsall went on to play himself, marrying the trumpet learned as a teenager to an ambient backdrop of electronica and percussion. With Alice Coltrane as his lodestone, his approach hasn’t much changed since, though it has evolved, adding players – an entire “Gondwana Orchestra” for two albums – meaning there’s a touch of deja entendu about this ninth release.

Format : Vinyl Record

2 Lp