By John Shand

What a bright new force is pianist Zela​ Margossian​. Her debut album, Transition, announced her range and fascination as a composer, splashing her Armenian heritage across the broad canvas of jazz. But whereas the album (as good as it is) felt slightly stifled by a preoccupation with precision, here her music exploded into a more visceral dimension, the fizzing excitement sometimes almost lifting you from your chair.

Perhaps her precocious sophistication (after relatively recently transitioning​ from classical to improvised music) is partly due to her breadth of life experience. Ceasefire, for instance, celebrates the joy of being able to leave a bunker in Beirut (where she and her family lived) to go up on the street to play during the Lebanese Civil War. Her experiences have also rounded her as a person, so, despite the historical hatred, this Armenian chose to include a Kurdish Turk in her band – and percussionist Adem​ Yilmaz brings shamanic​ powers to bear, combining improbable facility with ingenious artistry.

Yet such exceptional musicianship is the norm, shared by Margossian​, Stuart Vandegraaff​ (soprano saxophone, clarinet, ney), Elsen​ Price (bass) and Alexander Inman-Hislop (drums). The pyrotechnic thrills of odd-time-signature unisons at hurtling velocities were countered by the slow, moody groove of the Armenian traditional Erzerumi​ Shoror​, and the lonely yearning of Vandegraaff’s​ ney. Gradually the drama and dynamics of this intensified, until Inman-Hislop stormed the foreground with electrifying drumming.

Margossian’s​ exotic Mystic Flute had Vandergraaff’s​ clarinet lodged in its lower register, before an arco bass solo so forlorn as might make angels fall from heaven under the weight of their own tears. Yilmaz’s solo cajon​ on Doume​ began as softly as if it were approaching from the other side of a hill, while The Child in Me had thrilling dialogues between drums and percussion; soprano and piano.

Yilmaz and Inman-Hislop gave each other space throughout, like two brothers who have learned to share, although Yilmaz could jettison his overused chimes. The traditional Sari Axchik​ spawned Margossian’s​ finest work: a solo of muted passion.