Two years after its self-titled debut, the Altered Forms Trio returns with “Ecstatic Grains.” And to put it simply: Everything stays the same—flowing and free, in the truest sense of the word.

Just as on their debut album, Gregor Forbes, Robert Lucaciu, and Johannes von Buttlar combine an astonishingly high degree of musical expression with a wide-ranging soundscape across the nine tracks featured here. Anyone who has already had the pleasure of seeing these three improvisational musicians perform live knows: they are capable of coaxing even the most improbable sounds from their instruments. They prove this right from the opening title track, a complex cascade of sound of the highest caliber that impressively delivers on the exhilaration it promises.

In the second half of the album, guitarist Steffi Narr—a longtime collaborator—joins the trio. In tracks like “Buzz Field” and “Still Uncertain,” she pushes the intensity of the sound to unprecedented heights, before the slow “Shit Adrift” provides a conclusion that is as deliberate as it is beautiful and serene.