Saxophonist Ellery Eskelin’s unlikely trio — with Jim Black on drums and Andrea Parkins on accordion, sampler, and piano — turn their quirky instrumentation into an advantage here. Eskelin’s burly surrealism is unpredictable and joyous, full of labyrinthine twists and gaudy colors. Parkins moves among abstract sampler sounds, the accordion’s homely wheeze, and translucent piano vamps that add rhythmic tension and startling textures and colors. Black impishly goads the band forward, then absconds with the tempo only to insert textured percussion before rushing back in with a propulsive beat.

It all adds up to one of the more entertaining and substantial bands in improvised music today. The disc, which is their sixth together, features a suite of a dozen simple tunes written by Eskelin — some of them little more than rhythmic hooks on which they cut just loose and blow. On "Four Chords," they pivot out of plinky-plonky textural playing and into flat-out rock grooves. On "Middle C," they branch off in three different directions before converging on the title note. Then on "Kicks," they set up a lurching vamp and have fun morphing it into different shapes. They end with the parenthetical plus-one — Monk’s "Oska T," which is a perfect fit for their witty, idiosyncratic, irreverent style. This is a band who know how to have fun making serious music.