Saxophone quartets have a tendency to default towards an inert, generic power minimalism, generating music that is slave to the physical realities and rules of four-part harmony. The Madwort Saxophone Quartet inhibit their creative ambitions from the get-go with compositions that are built dutifully around interlocking rhythmic grooves which merely etch out harmonic grids when, musically, your ears are long since ready to move on. ‘Mad Giant Bee’ breaks the rhythmic regularity with a free-for-all that brings the piece to a shuddering halt, which is a rhetorical blunt tool. ‘Birds’ claws open some solo space by looping an arpeggiated flurry, but the resulting balance of solo against ensemble feels melodically prosaic. The ROVA Saxophone Quartet, Tim Berne, Steve Coleman and Joshua Redman, and an interest in retro comics, social media and algorithms that deal up prime numbers, are all woven into this group's backstory. Instead, though, I hear characteristically twee and painfully polite English saxophone quartet music that surely sells those inspirations short.