David Long: Ash and Bone (Rattle/bandcamp)

The career of award-winning multi-instrumentalist David Long began before he was in the jazz-improv outfits Primitive Art Group, Six Volts, Rabbitlock and Jungle Suite on Wellington's Braille label in the late Eighties.

He began as the guitarist in the jerky, short-lived New Wave electro-pop Tin Syndrome and later was in the Mutton Birds. Sound pop-rock credentials.

However he has written acclaimed soundtracks (The Lovely Bones, Beyond the Edgeand The Luminaries among them), composed for contemporary dance groups and classical ensembles, was in the left-field jazz group Labcoats (which included Riki Gooch of Trinity Roots and Eru Dangerspiel) and has been producer for Dave Dobbyn, Fur Patrol, Barry Saunders and others.

But Ash and Bone, a collection of eight idiosyncratic instrumentals – with six players from the NZSO, Gooch on percussion and electronics – is a meeting ground between Braille's quirky and exploratory ethic, avant-garde music, soundtracks and contemporary classical music.

With banjo.

The title track opens as a tranquil pastoral made increasingly uneasy with breezes from clarinets, flute and electronics before taking on a jaunty lope to the finish line; The Long Long Walk marries space-age electronics with romantic flute and harp; Wash Your Mouth Out (a title not out of place on a Braille release) brings the full ensemble in for a bouncy, quasi-martial piece; the closer Water The Earth starts as a restful clarinet, flute and tuba-coloured coda before soaring, authoritative trumpet takes it to the stars.

The vibrant cover painting by Karl Maughan of a path through lush vegetation to an unknown destination offers a visual analogy of this album's spirit which conforms to no genre but weaves between many colourful styles, much as Long has done for thirtysomething years.

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This album is available from bandcamp.