Led by composer-multi-instrumentalist Antti Vauhkonen, Oiro Pena is a Finnish collective that epitomises the pleasing creative oddities that have defined the country’s jazz scene for decades.

There is something plaintive but also rousing about their material, which largely reflects an engagement with the timeless universal vibrations of the Coltranes, Pharoah Sanders and Yusef Lateef. However, Oiro Pena also reflect geographical and cultural identity, tapping into the richness of Baltic folk music by way of the kantele, the wood-bodied zither that lends to the ensemble sound a kind of grainy, slightly spiky quality that steers the most contemplative of pieces clear of soporific waters.

What enhances this further is a decidedly lo-fi touch in the engineering, which lends an intimacy, and, dare one say, bedroom production charm to the session, if one could indeed squeeze horns, keys, percussion and double bass into a room with a view. But for all of the interest generated by both the instrumentation and compositions the quite spellbinding vocal performance of Merikukka Kiviharju is another notable element of a mix that is as pleasingly unfamiliar as it is familiar.