A world of masks

"After 2016's From the Deep, an excellent summation of all their previous musical directions, the Heliocentrics go -- as the banner on Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters bus proclaimed -- "Further." While the Malcolm Catto-led outfit has been digging through many varieties of jazz, psych-funk, hip-hop, library grooves, and international sounds (having worked with Mulatu Astatke and Lloyd Miller) for over a decade, A World of Masks presents an intergalactic take on many of the above ... A World of Masks is steamy, nocturnal, and economical. Most tunes are between three and five minutes, so there's never time to tire of any idea. This set is drenched in mystery; each track unfolds and transitions seamlessly as it builds and expands, enveloping the listener".

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"East London's questing Heliocentrics affirm the absorbing power of improvisation on this latest album, for which the grooves have been unearthed and honed through hours of collective play: music made for love and art, above all else. Aptly, it opens with the cosmic synthesis of "Made Of The Sun", before "Time" builds up drone textures akin to recent work by Goat, with dub effects sending shimmering contrails of individual elements - violin, percussion, plucked string sounds - flying off at tangents. "Human Zoo" is a Can-like improv groove which slows down to allow languid horns to add something of the character of their mainstay influence, Sun Ra's Arkestra. With new Slovakian singer Barbara Patkova bringing a flavour of Arkestra singer June Tyson over the title-track's flutes and burring horns, the impression is further cemented, lacking only Ra's explosive keyboard explorations. It's an engrossing set throughout, leading one through the subdued swirls of "Dawn Chorus" totheclimax of "The Uncertainty Principle", another work whose throbbing organ and cavernous twang owe a distinct debt to Can".

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