By the time they recorded and released Synaptic Acres, Sandoz Lab Technicians were a trio – James Kirk, Tim Cornelius and Nathan Thompson – with a number of albums and self-released lathe-cut singles under their collective belt. It’s always felt like one of their most expansive and assured collections of free improvisation; if earlier albums were piecemeal, though in a creative way – bustling miniatures of spacious clatter and hyperactive spirit-chasing – Synaptic Acres, like its predecessor Let Me Lose My Mind Gracefully, is a long, slow exhale. The playing could still work up a heady stream of low-level activity, but the trio let things fall more gracefully – the slithering, snakecharming wind instruments of the opening “Plethora of Exotic Mandibles” play out like a surrealist open-air recital; “Ion Drifters” strings jittery guitar interventions and subsonic thuds out across a bleak midwinter landscape.

– Jon Dale