Alexander Hawkins: Unit[e] review – dramatic improv with shape-shifting narratives

(AH Music)Oxford-based keyboardist and composer Alexander Hawkins walks his own line between free-improv and contemporary-classical composition, when he isn’t touring as a world-music one-off with the veteran Ethiopian star Mulatu Astatke. A bold Hawkins balance of left-field dancefloor punch, abstract collective-improv sounds and cutting-edge composition fuels this double album, with one disc performed by the pianist’s regular sextet including Sons of Kemet stalwarts Shabaka Hutchin