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Nothing on this record really conforms or coalesces with itself — and that’s not entirely a criticism — for all the disregard for expectations and convention, it chooses to simply drift along without reference, spreading out into the air to little more than an impression. This is heard for example on the closing ‘Edge’, with its busy, heavily industrial percussion supporting an odd mix of grainy guitar, angular saxophone and throbbing bass lines which seems a little unsure of itself as it writhes around uneasily, fighting to settle in.

This record is built from a textural group sound which rumbles gently, continually seeking to frame itself, with various degrees of success. Karl’s spacious saxophone trickles down thoughtfully over a bed of sparse various drums, a double bass, goat horns, fiddles, wood, bells and vocals. Add to this some well placed electronics which creep around quietly in the background and you can go some way to imagining what’s going on here.

Combining tracks from Poems for Trio (1988), Rit (1994), Spir (1998), Nye Nord (2002), and three new tracks, the recordings at first appeared to come over as a little cold and removed, stripped bare of their colour and ornamentation. The tracks felt more like statues than gardens, and it’s only on closer listening that we see the works from new angles and find warmth and subtleties within their sparse arrangements.

It’s the vocal tracks which come across as the most consistently engaging. The hauntingly meditative traditional Norwegian ‘Psalm Med Jesus Vil Eg Fara’, featuring Nils Petter Molvaer on trumpet, is startling in the way the emotive female vocal lead sits on top of the angular backing without ever really connecting. It gives a of a vaguely uneasy air, in a similar way to ‘Moon Traces’, which is sung beautifully by Odd Conestoga, although the latter manages to feel a little lighter and relaxed as it eases along slowly.

The dislocated and fragmented appearance of these foreboding pieces masks a more muscular and visceral undercurrent which never quite manages to step to the fore but provides the record with just enough drive and direction so as to allow it to amount to more than the sum of its parts.

It’s a relaxed end result, with themes and melodies whispering around each other through hazy atmospherics. These feel more like traces of music, but it’s the wonderful vocals which give you the handle you need with which to follow it as it ebbs gently away to dissolve into itself.