The album cover looks like music-nerd Mad Libs: Floating Points, the British electronic producer, made an album with Pharoah Sanders, the 80-year-old astral jazz legend? And with the London Symphony Orchestra? (Sanders used to spend a lot of time with Sun Ra, but and Orchestra is a whole different thing from an Arkestra.) But the album exists, and it’s a stunner.

Floating Points, the producer otherwise known as Sam Shepherd, got together with Sanders in Los Angeles in 2019 to work on music. Then, later, Shepherd also wrote a score for the London Symphony Orchestra, which recorded it in London in 2020. The collaborative album Promises was announced last month, and the artists didn’t share any early tracks as singles. There’s a reason for that. Promises only works together as a whole.

Promises is not the clusterfuck that you might imagine. Instead, it’s a gorgeous, contemplative mood piece. Where Pharoah Sanders’ saxophone style was once almost violent, it’s grown restrained and inward. Floating Points has held back, too, and the orchestral parts are mostly just color. Promises is a lush and absorbing listening experience, but it’s almost ambient. It just washes over you. Listen to it below.

Promises is out now on Luaka Bop.