The Ezz-thetics label's sleeve-design grid and its orange and black colourway is as recognisable a piece of branding as were Reid Miles' sleeves for Blue Note in the 1950s and 1960s (or indeed Impulse!'s orange and black LP spines a little later). It is also a similarly copper-bottomed guarantee of quality. Ezz-thetics does not, of course, have an audience the size of Blue Note's, but that is the way it is for a niche label, or, as in this case, a dual-niche label. Ezz-thetics' two niches are, one, newly recorded albums by left of centre artists and, two, the Revisited series, which reissues important albums from the mid-twentieth century with state-of-the-art sound restoration.

Meta Zero is a new recording and it is a blinder. Samir B?hringer's Zurich-based quartet debuted with the critically acclaimed Prometheus (QFTF) in 2020 and the line-up remains unchanged: B?hringer on drums (and all compositions), with tenor saxophonist