Christoph Irniger has been ploughing his furrow for a while with his quintet Pilgrim and maybe it is time for a change of direction. A ponderous beginning to this latest outing Crosswinds (Intakt, **) hardly bodes well: would this track not have been better pushed further back into the album? But hang on most of the album is like this! All pervasive introspective moods dressed in moody chamber-jazz livery failed to hook me in. What we have throughout all just seems instead like navel gazing. Most of the tunes are Irniger’s with bassist Raffaele Bossard and pianist Stefan Aeby also contributing as well as one group-penned piece. Dull fare. SG