Matthew Herbert seeks the essence of things in sound. On early albums like Around the House, he sourced house music from the clatter of everyday life; since then, he has created albums around increasingly specific sets of sounds: a grocery store (Tesco); a farm animal, followed along its journey from birth to plate (One Pig); a coal mine (Stonework: 1000 Metres Down). The Horse is among the UK musician’s most ambitious projects. To create it, Herbert and his collaborators fashioned bone flutes from a horse skeleton, used its hair to create string instruments and made drumheads out of its skin; he also availed himself of nearly 7000 horse sounds found on the internet. The album is suffused in an air of ritual, and it proceeds almost as though the beast were being brought back to life. From an abstract introduction of scraping and rustling, the music develops into lush, plaintive swirls (“The Horse Is Prepared”), communal dance rhythms (“The Horse Is Put to Work”) and wild, rollicking avant-jazz (“The Horse Has a Voice”, featuring tuba virtuoso Theon Cross). At times, Herbert’s ability to elicit music from flesh and bones feels almost supernatural; it’s a reminder that all music is, at heart, a form of mystery, channelling spirits out of thin air.