SoSaLa is the nom de guerre of Swiss-born Iranian American saxophonist Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi, who counts Ornette Coleman, the Master Musicians of Jajouka and Malian singer Salif Keita among his previous collaborators. Impressive pedigrees aside, on the evidence of this new album, it sounds like he could do with finding himself a band.

Most of the tracks here find his warmly melancholic tone backed by distinctly flimsy electronic beats such as might ooze easily from an iffy beach bar somewhere in the tropics. “Enough Is Enough” attempts to up the urgency with a spoken cameo appearance from philosopher, critic and activist Dr. Cornel West, who delivers an excited if somewhat inscrutable sermon that seems to berate “vampire capitalists” while exhorting musicians to “organise”. West may be a stirring orator but Amiri Baraka he ain’t. SoSaLa finds himself in much more convincing territory on three longer tracks that ditch the electronics in favour of meditative, raga-like atmospherics, blowing a sinuous soprano backed by dobro, bowed Persian kamancheh and Hungarian cimbalom. Now, wouldn’t it be nice if he could get a working group together to explore some of these Codona-like sonorities a little more deeply? Daniel Spicer