Drummer and percussionist are often interchangeable terms but Smith shows his distinct qualification for the latter on this adventurous, quite arresting release. Indeed his sensibilities are as much orchestral and textural as they are rhythmic and metric and the use of vibraphone and timpani, the former often a discreet slither and the latter a bullish rumble, are among the vivid colours that splash on to the restlessly shifting canvas of the leader’s compositions.

Pianist Taborn and viola player Maneri are absolutely simpatico partners, respecting the clear spaces and long draughts of air through which the chime of a bell, to evoke the titular image, might resonate more vividly. But as one would expect of a musician with a CV that has taken him into musical turbulence as well as tranquility by way of gigs with Marc Ribot, Tim Berne and Wadada Leo Smith, and his own bands, Smith sidesteps any chamber jazz clichés with a deft touch, skillfully harnessing the stark clamours as well as wry laments of which Maneri and Taborn are capable. In real terms that means a piece such as the captivating epic ‘Isn’t It Over?’ starts as an exercise in stillness, if not suspension, yet sidles into a pulsating groove on the back of circular timpani patterns from Smith, which his accompanists underline by scrapes and slurs of single notes rather than flashy volleys of chords, before turning into a fraught but not clinically melodramatic drone. The net result is an ambiance in which seduction teeters on the cusp of tension, a sleight of hand used in the work of all three men in the past that is entirely cohesive here in this new trio that was not, as Smith tells it, ‘supposed to be anything but a one-off gig.’ Luckily it is more.