Over half a century, Roscoe Mitchell’s body of work has gained a stylistic breadth that marks him out as a major contemporary composer as well as improviser. This live set from last year’s Fault Zone festival in California provides a fitting summary of the Art Ensemble Of Chicago co-leader’s daringly personal approach to form and content in two very different ensembles, making the point that a stage with just a few players can be as compelling as one with many.

Mitchell’s ear for an uncommon palette is vividly realised in the Space Trio, alongside baritone vocalist Thomas Buckner and saxophonist Scott Robinson. By contrast comes the 30-piece orchestra in which the richness of the woodwinds, from oboes and clarinets to bass clarinets, bassoon and contrabassoon, enables him to frequently create deliciously deep dark tremors that often suggest that the music is almost coming right up from the bowels of the earth. Mitchell’s love of low register instruments – his baritone and bass sax playing has always been a key feature of AEC’s discography – is nothing new, but he uses them with stealth here. Indeed, the scoring is very astute on ‘Distant Radio Transmission Fault Zone’, an epic 28-minute piece that has a shadowy mystery and precisely the sense of a spectral sound sliding in and out of earshot that is suggested by the title. This is a consistently challenging, often austere offering, but it has a soaring operatic character and fluidity of structure that ultimately makes for a rewarding listen.