snobb This album came as one of the most pleasant surprises in 2011 for me - I have always liked Elton Dean's music, whether he is playing as part of the Soft Machine, or solo. After some years of silence, "Ninesense Suite" just refreshed and reactivated my old love.

This album is a strange one. It features only two compositions, both recorded in the early 80s by two totally different bands. The first one, "Ninesense Suite", is a 41 minutes long complex free-jazz improvisation played by a team of musicians that is similar to those present on Dean's studio album "Boundaries", released in 1980; Elton Dean (sax), Mark Charig (trumpet), Keith Tippett (piano), Louis Moholo (drums) and bassist Mattos. On "Ninesense Suite", Harry Miller is on bass, instead of Mattos, and the entire band is improved by an additional brass section; (Alan Skidmore (ts),Harry Beckett (tp),Radu Malfatti (tb). Everyone familiar with the best Soft Machine releases coming from the early 70s know how fantastic they sound with a brass team in combination with psychedelic improvisations! Possibly Soft Machine fans who are not familiar with Dean's solo works will be a bit disappointed here though - this composition is a long free jazz improvisation without traces of any rock energy or structure that is characteristic of the usual Canterbury sound. Still, this is really great music, a bit similar to Centipede and other early Keith Tippetts works. It is also a very collective work - Dean's sax is present in very limited quantities.

The second composition on here, "Natal", is similar to the previous one, especially by its length (37+ minutes). The music presented on this one is played by a trio (!) excluding Elton Dean himself (!). This trio plays quite sharp British free jazz circa mid 70s and at a really great level! The sound mix is more crisp than on the first song, and even though it's quite obvious that these two pieces come from different places, it's a real pleasure to listen each of them.

This is probably not the best place for a newcomer to start checking out Dean's solo works, and possibly a mixed bag for Canterbury scene lovers, but this album is an excellent gift for the serious Dean/ Charig/ Tippett/ Moholo fan.