This album is not to be missed. Already it tops my picks for 2017 and it will take something really special to dislodge it. Few albums in the last couple of decades have matched the breadth and scope of Pasar Klewer, its often inspirational musicianship and the brilliance of its overall conception. This is Indonesian keyboard star Dwiki Dharmawan's second album – his first from 2015 was the electronic, fusion inspired So Far, So Close – and is an exemplary example of how global influences are feeding into jazz to create something that is both part of the universal language of jazz and an individual expression of local, social and cultural identity. Dharmawan speaks of how acculturation (learning to play American jazz) has interacted with his local cultural patterns to create “new forms of musical expression” – what I have called the glocalisation process. Thus, Gamelan influences, often a variation of the Gamelan tonal system called salendro, swim through and around American jazz performance practices (Gamelan is the traditional folkloric music of Java and Bali in Indonesia). On the impressive title track a metallophonic-like pentatonic introduction on piano leads into an episode with the Jess Jejong Gamelan Orchestra's singer Peni Candarini adding colour with vocals and bells that gives way to a jazz piano tour de force by Dharmawan. ‘Lir Illr’ is a traditional microtonally inspired Balinese melody which the pianist turns into an impressive longer form composition that elides into modal territory with a powerful, overdriven guitar solo from Mark Wingfield, followed by an interlude by Gamelan virtuoso Aris Daryono's vocal and rebab solo (a rebab is an Indonesian three-stringed violin) climaxed by another powerful, uplifting piano solo by the leader. ‘Spirit of Peace’ has a fine Gilad Atzmon clarinet interlude plus obligato colourings that evolve into an episode of konokol from Asaf Sirkis – an onomatopoeic method of expressing rhythm vocally (and a way of learning complex rhythms advocated by, among others, John McLaughlin who mastered the form over 30 years ago). As this two-album set evolves, the depth of musicianship by every member of Dharmawan's ensemble gradually comes into focus; Dharmawan as a true master musician, composer and conceptualist, the easy virtuosity of guitarists Mark Wingfield and Nicolas Meier and the work of both Atzmon and Sirkis who show here, perhaps more than in any other context, their world class credentials.