The spirits of Sun Ra, Krystof Komeda and Arthur C Clarke inform the fourth album by EABs, the Wraclow-based wonders whose melding of jazz, hip-hop and electronica has won them fans in high places and welcomed collaborations with everyone from the UK-based Tenderlonious to – for this concept work – the iconic octogenarian sax player/Komeda sideman Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski. Evolving from their previous Spirit of Sun Ra (2020), an exploration of jazz of the past and the future that celebrated the massive impact of the Sun Ra Arkestra on Poland, 2061 takes the cosmic theme further, venturing into parallel galaxies born of big bangs, utopian visions and a pandemic that threatened lives and livelihoods.

Cinematic and spacious, chaotic and hopeful, 2061 finds EABs going all out with their experimental free-form jazz originals, travelling through wormholes into trap, Latin and even drill music. Stand outs include the psychedelic synth wig-out ‘Conscious Breathing’, the grooving fusion cut ‘Dead Silence’ – a sort of Fania All-Stars on Mars – and album closer ‘A Farewell to Mother Earth’, to which Wróblewski lends his tenor rocket fuel. A political statement as much as a musical one, 2061 continues EABS’s ‘reconstruction from deconstruction’ philosophy in ways urgent and often ingenious, re-confirming their stellar reputation in the process.