Steve Barry’s recent projects span classy organ trio jazz with guitarist Hamish Stuart, chamber works and free improv with koto player Michiyo Yagi. This ocean-inspired sax and rhythm quartet set, with the Sydney-based composer/leader on piano, is steeped in the harmonic rigours and free-flowing discipline of well-executed contemporary narrative jazz. Complex themes are performed with ease, solos deliver emotional focus, and drummer Eric Harland decorates the pulse and drives from within.

The album opens with the left-hand piano stabs, textural variations and ebb-and-flow movement of ‘Lithospheric’ – the piece reflects on the scale of geological time. The angular syncopations of ‘First Eleven’ come next, with a fiddly structure and a relaxing tease of Thomas Botting walking bass. And then the modal drive of ‘On Dirt & Alchemy’ gains added interest from periodic pauses for thought.

But for all the music’s complexity, the band’s relaxed energy and creative focus never flag. Alto saxophonist Will Vinson, now also based in Sydney, provides emotional purpose with a pithy tone and New York bite, and the leader’s articulate fluency on piano holds the form with light touch lines and modal thrust.

The varied programme continues with the dreamy ‘Half Moon Lights’, ‘Thixotrophy’ sits a twisty theme over funky beats and the up-tempo blast of the title track finds piano chasing sax.

But each track has twists, turns and subtleties that flow logically and add to the album’s grip. The set closes with a ballad, ‘Float’, which, to paraphrase the sleeve note, bobs along gently in a supple 11/4.