London-based Zhenya Strigalev has something of the spirit of the wild men of the bebop alto horn about his playing. The St Petersburg-born saxophonist's sound is unpolished, playfully heated with note frenzies that echo the great altoist Charlie Parker as well as the west coast's Art Pepper. But vocabulary is a different matter, and Strigalev's ancient-to-contemporary palette means in a convincing way he is able to organically blend swing and bop roots with the more freer developments as well as the more recent avant funk and grungey electric jazz coming out of New York. Strigalev writes all the material here aside from a single contribution from his Russian compatriot trumpeter Vitaly Golovnev and themes range in their reference points from buzzy bop to brassy New Orleans jazz, through to Ethiojazz and 1970s street funk. The transatlantic line up refl ects the contacts built upon while he was co-producer of some of the hippest gigs in town for visiting New Yorkers at Shoreditch's Charlie Wright's over the previous half-decade. It's heavy duty on the American side with the elasticised polyrhythmic propulsion of Charles Lloyd/Joshua Redman drummer Eric Harland, the imaginative funk-rock crunch of Wayne Krantz's electric bassist Tim LeFebvre, and the acoustic bass of Brad Mehldau's longstanding sideman Larry Grenadier. Just the one British artist, the pianist Liam Noble is at his most unpredictably resourceful here. The recording has all the knife-edge momentum and skilled improvisatory abandon of its leader, so much so that even taking a breather for a ballad or two is in keeping with the session's raw edges. Chock-full of playful twists and turns, Strigalev's UK debut is what you might call a real cliché-free ride.