LacLu: self-titled (digital outlets)

LacLu is guitarist Keith Price (academic/teacher in the jazz faculty at Auckland Uni) and two recent graduates, saxophonist Francesca Parussini and drummer Maximillian Crook, recorded here in the Kenneth Myers Centre in Auckland, the former IYA radio building on Shortland Street.

The four spare, considered and spacious pieces hint at their nature through the titles of Price's originals the two-part Winter/Fog/Morning, Friends And Whanau, and their treatment of the beautiful standard Stella By Starlight.

The first part of Winter/Fog/Morning eases itself awake on Parussini's lazy saxophone over Price's shimmering guitar and Crooks' delightfully angular drumming, the pace slowly picking as the dawn breaks and daylight takes on more intensity.

The second part doesn't – as might be expected – continue that arc but dials right back down into a wonderful expressionist evocation of the cold foggy day. The spaciousness of the piece in the first half suggests stasis, the natural world cloaked in a fine mist and again Price's deft, subtle and measured playing is understated. These improvisations confirm less is more and wouldn't be out of place on an ECM album.

On the other original Friends And Whanau, Price's pristine playing holds the mood of reflection while Parussini stretches out a little. But again, constraint is the key element here, and their delicate treatment of Stella By Starlight fits into the album's atmosphere, just nudging for attention a little more in Parussini's insistent tone.

Albums like this – which come without much advance publicity and introduce new names, let alone being jazz – can pass by without getting much attention.

But from the opening passages of Price's warm guitar on that cold foggy morning, LacLu have announced themselves in a quiet and reflective way which rewards discovering.

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You can hear and buy this album at the LacLu bandcamp page here.