It takes serious guts to cover, interpolate or sample, in any fashion whatsoever, John Coltrane’s 1965 jazz epic A Love Supreme. Yet that’s how Takuro Okada opens his newest record Betsu no Jikan [Another Time] – and even more impressive is just how well Okada applies himself to Coltrane’s classic, tastefully acknowledging the weight of his source material whilst boldly riffing around it. The rest of Betsu no Jikan is just as remarkable, a work that combines spiritual jazz’s featherweight, windswept percussion and protracted, swooning horn play with generous caverns of ambience and twinkling bouts of improvisation. Following the rich folk rock of Morning Sun (one of The Glow’s best albums of 2020) and blustery sound design of Urban Planning, Betsu no Jikan is gutsy, expert and a worthy bookend to Okada’s last few years of protean excellence.

Listen to “A Love Supreme” below.