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The self-styled ‘wayward cellist’ returns from seven years of silence with a musical collective that draws on Indian and Tibetan music and cultures from an acoustic English focal point, featuring Locke’s own cello, Jo Freya’s sax and clarinet, flautist Sarah Allen, percussionist Jo May and mandola player Geoff Coombs.

The first track, ‘Dancing in the Ancient Dirt’, pushes open the door on an ensemble sound streaked with flashes from distant realms, exploring what happens when sacred Buddhist and Indian forms interact and mingle with English roots music. The catchy 7/8 time of ‘Dervish’ exultantly passes the six-minute mark, while ‘When the Heart Roars’, rising high from its solo cello intro, is a powerful setting for the recitation of Tibetan Buddhist scripture, ‘Calling the Guru from Afar’. The free-form interactions that rise between its verses coalesce in density and purpose in response to the monk’s voice, and there’s a similarly tight focus on solo cello in ‘Firebear’, the self-taught Locke finding different ways of making the cello express itself, while the ear-worm that is ‘Kuching’ steers towards a marimba-led musical Orientalism cloudy with the vapours of unattainable, otherworldly charms.