Dancing In The City As The Rains Descend Again

Daniel Ogren, John Maus, Matthew C. Whitaker, Pictish Trail, Pomplamousse,           Steve White Trio

Perhaps not a cluster of artists with the greatest name recognition but, perhaps, that's our fault, not theirs.

Soul Drums : Steve White Trio

Best for : Easy to like jazz

Sometimes I want music that stirs me, gives me a shot of intense, heartfelt emotion or motivates me to fight injustices. At other times I want, no, need, music that makes no demands even as it issues an invitation to have a good time.

The Steve White Trio include Steve White who is the brother of Oasis' Alan White and who drummed for Paul Weller in the Style Council. Josh White (no relation) is, however, the cousin of Richard Hawley. Chris Hague may not be related to anyone but one of the many good things about this album is that it is a welcoming and friendly form of jazz.

And if the thought of jazz doesn't appeal, this is jazz in the manner of The Style Council. There's even an instrumental cover of 'My Ever Changing Moods' which shows how the song might have sounded without Paul Weller. It's more buoyant but less distinctive lacking the spirit that drives Paul Weller but becoming something in the process that will appeal more widely.

While they certainly share influences with the mod appeal of the James Taylor Quartet and the Northern Soul feel of label mates Bangs and Talbot, it feels as if the trio have taken a small step beyond both of those acts into the world of mainstream jazz. This is music for warming up to the day. It's bright and breezy, rewarding attentive listening in the details but not overly demanding. They have a tune called 'Songs For Us Dads' and that's part of the feel too. It's the sound of a family getting on together, making breakfast after a celebration the night before.

After the grey clouds of the intro have passed over, 'Camera Obscura' has all the melody you could wish for. The tunes feature solid basslines over which piano roams freely. Steve White's drumming is creative and varied. It's his trio and he's fully earned the right to two short drum solo tracks - 'Mr B' and 'Throwing A Whitey' - which are great fun. While the feel of the album is clearly jazz, there are more than enough pop hooks on a tune such as 'Eye To Eye' to keep you coming back for more.

If you like warm and smiling, sunny and carefree music wherever it comes from, this is for you.

Taster Track : Eye To Eye

Photogenique : Pomplamoose

Best for : Everything French

The great strength of Pomplamoose's music is that it allows you to feel you're on holiday without setting foot outside the front door. Even better, it's not taking you to some tacky, touristy resort but to a secret location at the heart of what it feels to be French. This is music to carry you away from hot tarmac and dried out gardens to Parisienne cafes on the Seine, wrapped in a pleasantly cooling breeze.

You may not have come across them before but they've amassed 1.5m monthly listeners on Spotify which may not be stratospheric in the overall scheme of Spotiify things, but it's still a lot of people who have fallen for them.

'Photogenique' oozes sophistication and class. It's a close neighbour to lounge jazz but its soul is firmly in pop. There are times, as on 'C'est Simple' when you sense South American rhythms nudging French style. This is French pop aimed at their home market. It's deeply French, with a completely natural feel, not contrived and authentic. It's certainly not compromised for the UK.

Nataly Dawn sings with joy and verve. (No. Not The Verve!) It's the kind of French that can reduce a grown man to helpless, wide-eyed, open mouthed happiness. Her vocals range from flirty to fragile, even sounding a little cracked and vulnerable on 'Julie'.Their appeal makes it easy to overlook the musical quality brought by Jack Conte which is first class throughout.

My schoolboy French doesn't follow what they mean. It doesn't matter. I feel as if they are sung to and for me. The fact that they allow me to feel happy is enough. 'Valse d'Anton' feels weirdly like the memory of childhood Christmases and the sleepy contentment just before bed on Christmas night.

Forget Eurostar. Take a trip with Pomplamoose.

Taster Track : Angelique

Later Than You Think : John Maus

Best for : 21st century 80s synthpop

John Maus is known for making life tricky for himself in the interest of sticking to his principles. He composes on a home made, customised 80s synthesiser. That sound defines him and his aesthetic. He's known for being a musical academic and philosopher but that doesn't mean he's sacrificed accessible synth pop to the Gods of sounding clever.

This is an album that captures the promise and excitement of the advent of synthesisers in pop. It covers sixteen tracks in 41 minutes, all of them fully formed. He builds one song around one idea and leaves it as soon as he's sure that it has worked.

The sound is not sparse, minimal or basic. The warmer side of John Foxx comes to mind immediately. 'Came and Got' shows that with his approach he can craft enough arpeggios to touch classical hymn-like climaxes. It's clear, soft and clean even when dabbling in dark matters, an excellent picture of a pre HD TV screen.

Best of all this is an album that is never allowed to lapse into cold, clinical sterility. 'Let Me Through', 'Water' and 'Because We Built It' have a warmth that might remind you of China Crisis. When he takes on a love song such as 'Pick It Up' it's surprisingly tender, a moment of silken lucidity in an album that also isn't afraid to venture into more experimental territory. You're unlikely to hear the squall of rage that is 'I Hate Antichrist' on any radio network near you soon.

Vocally it's a little unusual. Maus sings with a slowed down delivery that has the mystery of a cowled monk, and calls to mind Thanos grooving. (Who? He's the bad guy in 'Avengers : End Game') It's a voice well suited to taking on Satan as he does on 'Disappears'. Lyrically, these songs are often little more than chants or incantations. It all adds to the sense that while the origin of these songs may lie in the 80s, it 's also music that sounds as if it comes from some future time at the end of the universe.

John Maus - an occasionally mad genius with the simplest tools and a pop heart.

Taster Track : Because We Built It

Pine : Daniel Ogren

Best for : Times when you want nothing to do but need a break from mindless social media scrolling and channel hopping.

What do you write about an album that you've found perfectly pleasant but it gives you nothing much to say? Let's find out.

Daniel Ogren is a Swedish guitarist. I came across him via his song 'Idag', recorded with Anna Ahlung in 2020. 'Pine' is a collection of guitar led instrumentals from last year. It has an urban, slightly detached air as if it's an early riser and is one of the first customers in Costa before the morning rush hour kicks in. And it shows Ogren to be a good guitarist and a fine writer of tunes.

But…… If you were born in the 20th century, you may remember the days before 24/7 TV when, for a few minutes each day, you could only watch and listen to the test card. The good news for Ogren is that the test card was an undemanding listen that quickly became dull and anonymous but, for a select group of listeners, was totally addictive.

It's not a hardship to listen to this at all, but it is a challenge to remember much of it after it's over. It's deep cut library music, music for when you're waiting for something else to happen. You'll have heard something similar while you've been on hold to Acme Insurance Co, or while you're obsessed by those screen savers that feature a drone's eye view of traffic moving slowly through a city.

Listening to this your mind may wander, but not to anywhere inspired by the music. It's not that it transports you to another world, more that you feel stuck in one and have no idea how you arrived there. For the most part this bears the same relation to rock guitar as painting by numbers does to art.

Just once, you feel that the music may be stirring itself towards rock God status and that's on 'Rocks'. Even here though it summons the will to wig out with all the energy of a young mother woken for a feed by her three month old child. The few seconds of full alertness that comes from the jagged soloing feel like a hard earned reward.

And yet, on its own terms it works better than many records in having a clear purpose in mind and delivering it. As it approached the end I felt stirrings of panic. I'd soon need to find something energizing and productive to engage me. Or, I could press repeat and watch just a few videos of football howlers. Good lord. Is that really the time?

Taster Track : Monda

Songs For The Weary : Matthew C. Whitaker

Best for : Bedtime listening

Think about writing songs for the weary and you can be pulled in two directions. You can write about the feelings of utter exhaustion or, as Matthew C Whitaker does here, you can compose a selection that comforts and settles you for a long, restorative sleep.

Whitaker has the kind of voice that is protective and stays close. It contains a quiet smile that delivers the kind of lullabies from the past that your Nan might have sung to you as a child. His songs - with the cowboy whistling of 'For The Weary' and the heavenly choirs of 'Mind How You Go' and others - create the space to let your imagination drift across pleasant thoughts as you sink towards sleep.

In his band life Whitaker is a member of cosmic prog group Henge. He doesn't throw away that side of him on this album, but it does feel as if he's taking the chance to have some fun as well. There are echoes here of the Beatles around the time of 'Rubber Soul' and 'Revolver', a kinder psychedelia from Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd and the attractive whimsy of the talking lawnmower on Genesis' 'I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe'. In the melody of 'Stand Up To The Man' he reminded me of the Leisure Society. The overall vibe is of artistic, turn of the Millennium chillout that is looking further back still.

You could describe something like 'Logan Stone' as a dream ballad. The stately slurred strings of the 'Overture' take you to a different place, safe and warm. 'A Portrait of the Artist As an Old Man' reveals him to be someone you can relate to.

This is a short, but lovely, album. It's densely packed and immediately satisfying.

Taster Track : Mind How You Go

Life Slime : Pictish Trail

Best for : Balancing the weird and the wonderful to awesome effect

'Life Slime' from Pictish Trail (aka Johnny Lynch) is a glorious career high. I've followed him for some time and found that whilst he's always been of interest, and his albums have contained flashes of brilliance, on 'Life Slime' he's made an album to love.

Johnny Lynch comes from Eigg, one of the smaller islands in the Inner Hebrides. It's just five miles long and three miles wide. It's a confined space which is completely at odds with the expansive sound of his music. It's akin to watching the Northern Lights under an otherwise empty sky, to having a front seat for a spectacular meteor shower full of shooting stars. It feels both cosmic and galactic.

This is music that doesn't shy away from experimentation, but uses it to make pop more substantial. They demonstrate that there is 'Another Way' to make affecting music. 'Hold It', which opens the album, is a little wonky, somewhat off-beat but something special emerges from it. He has an unhurried and completely natural way with melodies. They're gravity free and drift in and out of a beautiful strangeness that is never allowed to obscure the song. There's just one track - 'Toxic Spillage' where the experimentation is the right approach to the tune and it also works as the ideal introduction to the following track 'Battery Pack'. 'Sorry Eyes' has an effortless propulsion to help a Festival crowd move as one. The cumulative effect is that, as demonstrated by 'Infinity Ooze', a rare loveliness runs through the entire album.

The approach in this album reminds me of OMD in their early days, when the likes of 'Souvenir' and the Joan of Arc songs could sit next to a more abstract song like 'Sealand'. Its sound took me to the loveliest moments of a band such as Patrick Watson.

This is an album full of wonder and brilliance and one to return to time and time again.

Taster Track : Hold It