The various albums saxophonist Martin Küchen has released under the Angles banner have been some of most exciting emanating from Scandinavia over the past two decades, brasher and more European, say, than the more crystalline music for which the region is more simplistically known.

The group, originally a sextet, has been distilled down to a trio and swelled to as large as a tredectet. A major reason for its consistency has been its core personnel, with bassist Johan Berthling, trombonist Mats Äleklint, trumpeter Magnus Broo and vibraphonist Mattias Ståhl pretty much on board since the beginning, and for the leader's composing, no matter the ensemble size, the throughline.

Küchen's latest is Tell them it's the sound of freedom, his first for Polish label Fundacja Słuchaj after most of the Angles discography came out on Portugal's Clean Feed, and also the first by the second largest iteration of the group, 11-strong with Berthling, Broo and Ståhl on board (Äleklint absent but thanked), the others regular participants in Eirik Hegdal (baritone and alto saxophone), Kjell Nordeson and Konrad Agnas (drums) and Alex Zethson (Fender Rhodes, Juno 106), plus newcomers Michaela Antalova (drums), Susana Santos Silva (trumpet) and Josefin Runsteen (violin). The keyboards of Zethson, who started out with the group as a pianist, and Runsteen's violin, represent newer textures added to the group over the past several years.

Recorded live in Stockholm, the album is not long, three tunes at just under 38 minutes, but deliciously varied. The title track is a long-fused elegiac melody. "A Night in Schwabistan", the name a play on the jazz standard, mixing Germanic, Eastern and space-jazz traditions; it's infectious and bombastic, particularly during the glorious squall of its last two-plus minutes. The final track, "Young Blood Transfusion", features the drum section twice in what is otherwise a lengthy Chicago-style groove moving from elegant to stentorian.

There are solos and fine ones at that, but this is ultimately and unabashedly group music.