Last year, hard-working and just as hard-to-pigeonhole Swiss saxophonist Nicole Johänntgen released Henry III, the third instalment of her New Orleans-inspired project recorded live with her quartet at the Domicile Jazzclub in Pforzheim in Germany. Among the energetic setlist is the funky ‘Discoland’.

And now Johänntgen is back with Solo II, recorded (as the title suggests) on her own at an altitude of 2,100 metres in a chapel high in the Gotthard Pass in Switzerland. A long way in spirit from disco, then. It’s an immersive, introspective, deeply meditative recording, made on a light-filled morning high in the mountains, and where Johänntgen, variously on soprano, alto and baritone sax, spars with the elemental, reverberative acoustic of the tiny Cappella di San Gottardo on the likes of ‘Echo of the Mountains’ and ‘Gotthard Momentum’. On the final track, ‘The Unknown’, she begins to sing too. ‘When I stepped out of the chapel into the glistening midday sun after an hour and a half of concentrated playing, I felt incredibly light,’ she says. Listeners are likely to experience a similar freeing of the spirit.