An iconic figure of the 90s’ Chicago scene, Joshua Abrams travelled to Essaouira (Marroco), where he bought his guimbri (a kind of lute-cum-bass central to Gnawan music), at the end of that decade. News of this reached the ears of Hamid Drake after which Abrams started to introduce his guimbri and the Gnawan people’s characteristically hypnotic sound to jazz musicians. The focal point of Natural Information Society, a group founded by Abrams in 2010 and whose essence lies as much in the continuous circularity of its music as the soloist’s freedom, he compared the instrument (in an interview with the Público newspaper) to a rail journey: “The landscape changes but always gradually.” Joining the group is the heavyweight European improviser Evan Parker in a magical coming together documented in the album descension (Out of Our Constrictions) recorded at London’s Café Oto.