Nathan Haines enjoying time of his life

Nathan Haines wants to buy a nice English cottage where the air is clean, the food is decent and the lifestyle relaxed. He wants some "peace and quiet". Which sounds a bit rich from someone who makes his living making noise.

"I just don't want to live in central London anymore," he says from his mate's Oxford pad, where he's been living out of a suitcase since November. "There's lots of aggro on the street in London I don't really want to deal with."

Haines' desire to settle down might seem out of sorts with his cutting-edge, urban image - since moving to London 10 years ago he's released two forward-thinking albums fusing house music and jazz - but it might explain his latest endeavour.

Life Time is a sophisticated, slickly packaged, beautifully arranged selection of originals and classics recorded with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, featuring Haines on sax, flute and vocals. It's a time capsule of the series of concerts he did with the NZSO last year.

Ranging from a string-soaked rendition of Burt Bacharach's The Look of Love and the Cole Porter elegy, Everytime We Say Goodbye to Haines' composition with Mark de Clive-Lowe, Oblivion and his brother Joel's melancholic Serial Minds, it was the first time Haines has worked with so many musicians since his days playing flute in the North Shore Youth Orchestra.

A number of the tracks were arranged by acclaimed New Zealand-born musician Alan Broadbent, who worked with Haines' father Kevin in the 60s. Other contributors include arrangers Carl Doy and Victoria Kelly, plus his dad on bass, and brother on guitars. Joel also mixed the album.

"It was amazing to hear people take your ideas and make them into something else. Someone like Alan I have a huge amount of respect for, it was great to know someone of his calibre wanted to work with me. I just couldn't believe it."

Needless to say, the album is a sidestep from his edgy Phil Asher-produced albums Sound Travels and Squire for Hire, and he's still not sure if he'll release it in Britain where he's better known for his noodly sets in trendy clubs.

He says he's prepared for any backlash against what could be perceived as an attempt to tap into an older market but hopes listeners will appreciate to the intricacies in the arrangements, the subtle nuances in the performance, and the fact this is the most technically demanding work he's ever done.

And that's terrifying, he says.

"I had to let go more than I've ever done because it's a live performance. You hear me, what my ideas were at the time. You don't hear it cut up, you hear the one version of where I was at as a musician, as a person at that time. So I don't think it's safe at all. It's actually incredibly unsafe for a musician. There was no safety net, there was no, 'Let's do another one'. This album's a much bigger sound, a deeper project and it comes from a different place within me. It's not happening or trendy or whatever, but I'm not interested in that."

Meanwhile, life on the other side of the world continues to diversify. Haines has just finished a two-week tour with disco diva Marlena Shaw, who featured on Squire For Hire. And he's just finished rehearsals with Jamiroquai, after featuring on the song Talullah from his new album, Dynamite.

"I'm just lucky that I can be involved with lots of different projects, which is a bit confusing for people who follow my records but hopefully they'll approach it like any of them, as openly as possible. I mean, I could make a hundred Squire For Hires and I love that album. But this is a whole different thing. Why I called it Life Time is it represents my whole life in music."