EXPLODING STAR ORCHESTRA Vinyl & CDs

Review: Given the quality of his first album with the Exploding Star Orchestra - an invitational collective of musicians and improvisers whose make-up frequently changes - you'd expect this belated follow-up from long-serving jazz and electronica experimentalist Rob Mazurek to be rather good. It is, of course, with a new 11-piece version of ESO delivering inspired interpretations of pieces Mazurek originally wrote for the 2018 edition of JazzFest in Berlin. The album is rooted in spiritual, cosmic and freestyle jazz, but also draws on a multitude of other sounds and styles, from the fuzzy post-rock of Tortoise and fractured experimental electronica, to soul-jazz, string-laden folk ad out-there ambience, Dimensional Stardust is towering work of musical fusion: a 21st century jazz set that will still sound like the future a hundred years from now.