Starting from a simple core of guitar, bass, drums and keys, Glasgow-based Ari Tsugi fold in brass, strings and woodwind, and take a novel approach to vocals. Simultaneity (同時性) purports to “represent a journey of a spirit which seeks warmth, contentedness and ultimately the answer to his question of existence.” However, if you’re able to organically garner that experience from these 35 minutes then you’re either at monastic levels of enlightenment or you’ve got a good Ayahuasca connect.

The album does flow like one movement from one track to the next, but each part is easily discernible. After just a couple minutes it feels like you’re in for the bland, smooth stylings of coffee-shop muzak (fluttering cymbals, a walking bassline, soft vocals…), but then the sax starts to wail, the vocals eschew any notion of structure in favour of wordless vocalisations, and the album springs to life.

‘Haru (春)’ starts with a spoken-word intro (in Japanese, like many songs) that fades into birdsong, while later loose chanting mixes with returning spoken-word. Threaded throughout is Liam Shorthall’s chirpy trombone. And this is a recurring theme; the vocals are fragmentary wisps, either sung/spoken in Japanese, nonsense vocalisations or simply unintelligible (or backmasked as on ‘Natsu (夏)’), often in the space of the same song. At the same time the arrangements are considered and reflective, mixing brass (trumpets/trombone on ‘Fuyu (冬)’ and ‘Natsu (夏)’, sax on ‘Hold Me Tight (抱きしめて)’) with droning distortion and ripping solos (the thirteen minute epic, ‘Mezame (覚醒)’).

There’s an occasional feeling of whiplash in the way something so carefully constructed can also veer so wildly between different styles. If you’ve got days to kill and a solid grasp of Japanese you might be able to parse the wider metaphysical underpinnings, but trying to make sense of Simultaneity (同時性) is to miss the spontaneous joy present in each oblique left turn. Dive In. Surrender. You’re in safe hands.