In the video an earlier version of Sam Massey's 'Ballad for Kenny' and some other album snippets recorded in 2019 at Wells Cathedral School in Somerset featuring several members of the Hills & Valleys line-up. Look for 'Whitchurch Down,' the opening track and first single from the album out on 3 May. Ahead of release Superlocrian play Devon festival the Sidmouth International Jazz and Blues Festival in the afternoon on 27 May. The album is out on 7 June.

Benign and very heartfelt - and yes archetypally English in almost a bygone sense - what a wonderful piece of chamber jazz embued with pastoral qualities conjuring the shires ingeniously arranged in the inflections and abundantly melting tonalities.

Founded by trumpeter, composer-arranger Sam Massey of the Mike Westbrook Uncommon Orchestra - hear him on 2016's A Bigger Show - also in Superlocrian, a term that can refer to an altered dominant scale, are Gavin Mallett and Hugh Davies on trumpet and flugelhorn; Edward Leaker on soprano and alto saxophone; Jade Gall on saxophones and flutes; Tom Green on trombone and Mike Poyser on tuba.

Hills and Valleys was recorded last year in the optimum surroundings of Air in Hampstead. The ensemble play Massey originals, standards such as Carly Simon's 'Nobody Does It Better' and a gorgeous take on the Roger Nichols, Paul Williams 1971 classic 'Rainy Days and Mondays' synonymous with The Carpenters.

Tom Green's 'Snake's Meadow’ inspired by the county flower of Oxfordshire, the under threat Snake's Head Fritillary (above), is the acclaimed trombonist's love letter to Oxford. Some other tracks were inspired by further south west of England landscapes local and meaningful to the album's personnel, for instance referring to Dartmoor National Park. Massey says: ''This debut album has been a long running ambition of mine'' and he adds that regarding the piece called '2020' that ''the track is a musical diary to mark the passage of time with various events defined by different musical sections and improvised solos, with playful references to certain times of year and an ominous ending hinting at uncertain times ahead.” Massey's Kenny Wheeler homage 'Ballad for Kenny' is perfect.