Artist in residence at the recent Lancaster Jazz Festival this is a souvenir album that shoots from the hip in more than one sense by also providing much needed aural documentation of a significant milestone for saxophonist-composer Cath Roberts.

One of a new stream of free improvisers to make their mark on the national scene, the style is beefily riff-driven, full of layer and anarchic passion, Roberts’ sound, heard best of all before on record in the band Entropi, her timbre and command on baritone here reminds me of Hamiet Bluiett in his World Saxophone Quartet days.

The ensemble, a tentet, packs quite a punch. All sinewy reeds, scrabbly punkishness and tenderness (as in ‘Boiling Point’ the track above) projected via a collective facility through Roberts’ stewardship of free form story-telling in its compositional assemblage, the album was recorded at the Dukes theatre in Lancaster Roberts joined by some leading lights of the Manchester free-jazz scene (including musicians from the Beats & Pieces big band family), and also by saxist Dee Byrne who, like Roberts is located at the heart of the increasingly influential Lume avant jazz scene. For Quadraceratops’ fans, Live at Lancaster Jazz Festival takes that band’s music a step further on.