Pat Thomas told me that this set was the second half of a piano double bill, following a performance by Palestinian multi-instrumentalist Dera Kalash who played “all the keys all the time.”

That explains why the first 16 minutes of the 41-minute title track feature Thomas concentrating exclusively on examining the innards of the piano, eliciting dull thuds and ghostly scrapes from the strings. When the first oceanic chord does finally land, it’s rich and deeply satisfying – and proof that, no matter how far out he goes, there’s always a cogent compositional logic underlying even Thomas’ most wayward improvisations.

In this sense, his approach to the unaccompanied piano solo sits closest to the similarly inspired and unfettered excursions of Sun Ra. As it unfolds, the rest of that long piece takes in sparkling April showers, stark plunges, manic prances and an episode of boisterous mutant stride. The invention and intensity never flag for a second. Two very brief encores serve as recapitulations: ‘Twilight’ stacks up dramatic chords into a pile of tottering beauty; ‘Soca Time’ is a coda of dry friction generated from inside the piano. Thomas doesn’t sound like he’ll be running out of ideas any time soon.