London-based jazz exotica trio Les Hommes are back with the thoroughly off-kilter long-player The Sinner. The mood is a globe-trotter with sounds from Arabian cafes, sonic postcards from Rio and deep modes from European jazz quarters. The Sinner is a continental audio trip, an excursion into east-meets-west where Les Hommes's core line-up of vintage Lowrey organ, a gamut of exotic percussion and amazingly swinging jazzuous drums, joins a high-contrast sonic palette that includes frenzied Eastern chimings of santur, Italianate clarinet, vibraphone and alto flute - channelled through the cinematic variations-on-a-theme blueprint. From the Shearing-meets-Monk 1960s club grind organtronica of 'Queen Fez', the noirish clarinet-led brooding shimmer of 'Canticle', the primal swing of the jazz samba 'Esp?rito santo' to the visceral pulse of the Persian daf in 'Dusty road' and the modal mood that colours 'Dolores', The Sinner is a supremely mondo bella figura. A fairground ghost train ride into unchartered sonic territory with its unspoken salutary tale of The Sinner and his arcane quest for atonement
