The great bassist’s first LP as leader, released in 1978, just after the demise of the Revolutionary Ensemble.
Fact magazine reckons it’s one of ‘twenty essential records from the 70s underground’: ‘a beautiful set, with James Newton’s flute giving the quartet performances a breathy lilt, while the interaction between Sirone on bass and Muneer Bernard Fennell (who also appears on Abdullah’s wonderful Life Force from 1979) on cello is lovely, particularly when Sirone is playing arco — parts of Circumstances feel like they’re levitating on lambent strings. Famoudou Don Moye (of The Art Ensemble Of Chicago) is a sympathetic, apposite percussionist too. Yet perhaps the most potent moment on the album comes when Sirone is playing solo, singing out from and stretching the parameters of the instrument, running rivulets of melody down the instrument’s spine on Breath Of Life. The closing Libido ends things on a graceful, melancholic note, the strings and flute harmonising across gentle phrases.’
Painstakingly reissued, in a die-cut craft-card sleeve, with a printed inner, and two postcards.

Bluesy, free, spiritual jazz from St Louis. Recorded in 1982; still freshly rugged and intimately engaging.
Right away you can hear saxophonist Maurice Malik King’s indebtedness to Albert Ayler, with whom he studied at the turn of the sixties in NY, before returning to the Midwest. Two more long-term activists of the post-bop underground — both embedded in New Mexico — Qaiyim Shabazz plays congas, and the outstanding bass-playing is by Zimbabwe Nkenya, who has collaborated with Ku-umba Frank Lacy, Julius Hemphill, William Parker, and a host of others.