Steve Reid's music is the furthest thing from being inert and unfeeling that I've heard in a long time. Unlike other rhythm based contemporary music that repeats itself in an endless drone causing listeners to shut down emotionally and intellectually, Steve's music has sparks of freedom blown into it that break through the walls of the rhythm stimulating your heart and keeping your mind ticking over.

I have to say that at first I found the use of electronics sort of disconcerting, but Kieran Hebden isn't just after making "neat sounds" or creating a single effect. He creates another instrument that works and responds to the acoustic instruments around him just as if he were playing a saxophone instead of "electronics". The only other group I've heard incorporate electronics into jazz based music this seamlessly has been The Chicago Underground Trio.

Steve Reid is quoted as saying he writes his music after its been played, and that when they started work on this disc and his fellow musicians asked what he wanted them to do, he told them "just play". Working at that level of improvisation can be the equivalent of giving yourself enough rope to be hung with if you don't know what you're doing or don't have a solid foundation to build from. For Steve Reid, the clues all reside in the rhythm, and he is a master at deciphering the clues that live in a particular rhythm to bring it completely alive.

The Steve Reid Ensemble's Daxaar is a brilliant example of what happens when the potential of rhythm is fully realized. It's some of the most fully alive music that I've listened to in a long time.