Difficult second album syndrome? Not for Xhosa Cole, the multi-award-winning Birmingham-based saxophonist whose bold artistic vision was given wings on his 2021 debut K(no)w Them, K(no)w Us and soar to even greater heights here. Thoughtful and heartfelt, academic and earthy, Ibeji (which means ‘twins’ in West Africa's Yoruba culture) is a collaborative project of duos with seven formidable percussionists-cum-truth tellers of African descent. It is also an exploration of duality, racism, identity and more, framed within the context of the Motherland and the Diaspora and their rituals.

Opener ‘Doo-Shima’ kicks off with a spoken word recording by drummer/educator Ian Parmel, co-founder of Birmingham's Ace Dance and Music: "We all have a drum inside us and it is our heart," he says. And just as the drum is therefore an extension of the body, so too are Cole's saxophones, each weaving a golden ribbon through themes both elemental – the drum/heartbeat, the clave rhythm as lifeblood – and personal. ‘Andy's Shuffle’ finds Cole and NYC drummer Jason Brown celebrating the legacy of late Jamaican-born, Birmingham based saxophonist Andy Hamilton. Corey Mwamba weighs in on ‘Double Displacement’; Adriano Adewale on ‘Dance of the Ancestra’. ‘All Roads’, a stand out, welcomes Xhosa's brother Azizi Cole in a creative free-for-all combining handclaps, drumming and careering sax lines with vibing backing vocals, out-there electronics and jazzy reinvention; with connection to family, friends, community and, across all of Ibeji, to Africa, the source.