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Finn Peters

Butterflies

accidental AC29CD

Quite a buzz ­ or, perhaps more appropriately, a flutter ­ has been building up concerning the follow-up to Finn Peters's deservedly acclaimed debut recording Su-Ling (Babel, 2006), and judged by the results, it's been justified: Butterflies is just as wide-ranging, imaginative and adventurous as its distinguished predecessor, but perhaps more homogeneous, particularly as regards overall mood and pace.

Peters operates on both flute and alto ­ often overdubbed, together ­ and has a knack of producing entrancing, subtly shifting themes that slowly build from gentle, sometimes downright ethereal, beginnings to controlled but powerful climaxes involving intelligently balanced selections of instruments ranging from his core band ­ completed by the various keyboard sounds of Nick Ramm, the solid bass of Tom Herbert, Dave Okumu's subtle guitar, the understated drumming of Tom Skinner and the wild-card computer sounds of Matthew Yee-King ­ to those produced by skilfully selected guests: kora player Kadialy Kouyate, gamelan men Benji B and Dave Price, trombonist Jonny Enright and violinist Darragh Morgan.

In a recent interview (with Roger Malone in the Plymouth Herald), Peters set out his aims for the album: 'I wanted something slow and beautiful. Something that people want to sit and listen to', and this is precisely what this mesmerisingly lovely album achieves; on each fresh exposure, it reveals hidden musical depths, delicate felicities of timbre and dynamics, many due to Ramm's unerring ear for precisely appropriate keyboard textures, but often group-based.

Overall, courtesy of Peters's interest in Oriental art and philosophy, there is a distinctly Eastern flavour to the music on Butterflies, but it is also, in line with Peters's often declared aim of making music accessible to everybody, in or out of the jazz world, utterly approachable; as he says in the above-mentioned interview: 'If the audience feel they are going with you, that's great … Hopefully we will be "going off on one" [in live performance] … If we don't, what's the point?' Amen to that; this fascinating recording is a real contender for album of the year.