the music of nat birchall joins with a long-flowing conversation in jazz. his chosen tongue is that of the spiritualised musical discourse whose vital source can be found in the sacred testaments of john coltrane, and which was channelled most directly by his fellow travellers albert ayler, pharoah sanders, and his wife alice. many others followed where coltrane led, giving voice in music to the esoteric renewal of the soul and mind that lent spiritual strength to the black counterculture, and complemented the political radicalism of the late 1960s and 1970s. this rich vein of spirit music has rarely been tapped by british jazz musicians, and birchall is one of the few to have been drawn to it with the conviction of heart that it demands. for these are the sonic and spiritual spaces where the colossi of an earlier age declaimed and confessed with sacrificial passion, from within the flames of revolution.