The 17 short improvisations that make up Matthew Bourne's first solo studio album, capture the maverick pianist at his most serious and tender yet. In his sleeve notes, Bourne claims that, with these pieces, “fragility and romanticism seem to have outdistanced the clutter and quirkiness characteristic of previous work” and there is, indeed, a maturity and restraint here that he doesn't always get the chance to demonstrate in other contexts. Recorded in the Great Hall at Dartington College in south Devon, the date sounds every bit like a conscious effort to evoke the peace and beauty of the English countryside on a drowsy late-Spring afternoon: ‘The Greenkeeper’ incorporates the drone of a distant lawnmower, while on tracks such as ‘Juliet’, Bourne provides elegiac cello. But within all the placid, pastoral delicacy, Bourne's inquisitive nature can't help wriggling through. So, ‘Abrade’ finds him reaching into the guts of the piano to scratch and scrape the strings, while ‘Etude Psychotique’ is a manic burst of scrabbling energy. This is the sound of a sincerely searching mind in action.