In the past few years, the full extent of Alice Coltrane's talents has been coming into sharper focus, and this set of super-rare (previously available only as a series of cassettes distributed by Alice herself) music makes the picture crystal clear. She was a unique individual and a distinctive artist. Her journey from jazz pianist with a strong grounding in gospel to disciple of spiritual leader Swami Satchidananda and exponent of Hindu devotional song led her to create music of breathtaking beauty, shaped as she was by this life journey that is anything but conventional.

Here she sings and accompanies herself on organ, creating a sound world that is far away from any prevailing Western ‘vocalist and keyboard’ model because the timbres drawn from each source are hard to define. Coltrane, or Turiya as she became known, was able to make the electric instrument assume the kind of liquidity and breathiness that renders it half accordion half harmonium, and her spare chording and controlled flourish render the adagio gems all the more dazzling. Above all Turiya's voice is a thing of real wonder – low, commanding, sonorous – and imbues songs such as ‘Yamuna Tira Vihari’ with vast emotional magnitude, as if she is baring her soul for the betterment of the whole world. Even more fascinating is the transformation of the stunning ‘Jagadishwar’, which is markedly different to the take that featured on 2004's TranslinearLight. This is the kind of intimate, meditative music that has both divine inspiration and sublime execution, duly marking out Alice Coltrane-Turiya as an inspiring, singular exponent of both secular and sacred music.