Mark Lockheart

★★★★ Dreamers EDITION. CD/DL/LP

Quartet set from under-sung saxophonist, an exemplar in the art of mood building.

After working with a 30-piece orchestra for 2019’s Days On Earth,

Dreamers marks a partial return to Lockheart’s eccentric roots in Loose Tubes and Polar Bear. A jagged, otherworldly feel percolates through this four-way with Dinosaur keyboardist Elliott Galvin, long-term bassist Tom Herbert and drummer Dave Smith – relatively gentle as it weaves around Lockheart’s ragalike two-bar sax riff on Jagdish before careening off the rails on Gangster Rat and Mingle Tingle, with Galvin wreaking havoc from his Frankensteined box of tricks. The Kraftwerk-inspired title track and longing tour-de-force Weird Weather better display Lockheart’s contrasting spare and feathery tones, shades of Wayne Shorter and Michael Brecker brushing up against spacedout counter-melodies. The ever-shifting rhythmic pulse further blurs the lines between composition and improvisation, ensuring the woozy momentum never wavers.