The second, eponymous album from saxophonist-composer Tim Berne’s acoustic quartet Snakeoil. Over four years together, Berne and his band of New York standouts - pianist Matt Mitchell, clarinetist Oscar Noriega and drummer/percussionist Ches Smith - have developed a rapport that sounds like communal telepathy. The studio outcome is a marvel of kinetic action, the six pieces of Shadow Man making for music as visceral as it is cerebral; there is roller coaster dynamism and aching lyricism, roiling counterpoint and intriguing harmony, glinting detail and ensemble impact. The album is a dizzying experience for the senses, breathtaking in its sheer imaginative verve.

Tim Berne has been described as a saxophonist and composer of granite conviction by The New York Times. Incidentals is the fourth album from his spirited Snakeoil band and the second to feature the quintet line-up in which his core group with clarinetist Oscar Noriega, pianist Matt Mitchell and drummer/vibraphonist Ches Smith is augmented by guitarist Ryan Ferreira. The music is characteristically action-packed in the Berne tradition: powerful, dynamic, often fast-moving - yet also very clear in all its teeming detail.