It’s refreshing to hear this band, led by British-born, Berlin-based Jaswon, that has both created a very distinct and individual tonal palette, and can sustain it across an album. Partly it’s the lighter touch of a group that has no keyboard, using a guitar in the ensemble chordal role. But it’s also the clever and complete integration of young Dutch singer Anna Serierse into the ensemble. Whether she’s clearly illuminating the lyric poetry of Elsa Hammond, Catherine Faulds, Claire Cox and Carrie Etter, or contributing a wordless melodic line to the ensemble, the arrangements cleverly mirror the timbre of her voice. That’s not to say the tracks lack variety, and ‘Seasick Part 1’, for example, swells from a solo bass excursion to the full band plus voice before ushering in the tenor of Marc Doffey. Yet this seems completely consistent with the entirely contrasting texture of Jaswon’s solo soprano weaving in and out of Serierse’s wordless vocal, accompanied by handclaps, in the opening ‘Swimming in Winter’. Jaswon is particularly effective when he writes using motific structures that repeat, exemplified here by ‘Landfill’, where the entire ensemble chips in on a short phrase that repeats and transposes, and which is then never far away in the melodic development of long solos from Ugoljew and Jaswon. The shape of the entire album has clearly been thought about, and there’s a melancholy reprise of ‘Swimming in Winter’ towards the end, leading to the closing ‘Enigma’ with both words and music by Jaswon. It bears repeated listening and there’s always something more to discover.