Nala Sinephro

★★★★ Space 1.8 WARP. DL/LP

The London jazz revival moves into ambient phase.

The reputation of Alice Coltrane is so justifiably imposing it can be hard to consider other jazz harpists without drawing comparisons. Caribbean-Belgian newcomer Nala Sinephro is striking, however, in finding a rather different route to the transcendent. On her solo debut, Sinephro’s harp playing tends toward the minimal and spectral rather than to cosmic flurries, blending with her equally subtle synths. Sometimes, the elements coalesce into a quasi-ambient remodelling of the current London jazz sound: Nubya Garcia is at her most nuanced on the small hours étude of Space 4, the album’s most conventional highlight. But it’s the way these sessions are gracefully processed into digitalia that makes the whole thing so cohesive, even as the concluding Space 8, a 17-minute excursion with saxophonist Ahnansé, ventures into the muggy Fourth World zones mapped out by Eno and Jon Hassell. John Mulvey