The Pop In The Real World '87 Shopping Days Until Christmas' Holiday Special

Billy Reeves, Bonobo, Railcard, Rosa Walton, SAGES, Stereolab. Urlaub In Polen.

First with the 2026 Christmas stocking present ideas.

Postwar : Billy Reeves

Best for : The music of second chances

The world is full of excellent musical acts that have never received the respect and acclaim their music deserves. Billy Reeves was in one of those bands - theaudience. The difference is that he suffered a near fatal car accident that left him unable to even recognise his own songs for a while.

He drifted away from releasing his own music until 2023, and 'Postwar' is his fourth album since then. What comes through very clearly is the sense that Billy is writing the music that matters to him. It's hard to categorise, except under the broad heading of indie. He hopes you'll like it, that it will mean something to you but, if it doesn't, then jog on.This album is brimful of life, the music of a man who has been given a second chance. He's not letting it go.

It's rare that an album captures the artist's personality in all its complexity. Billy emerges as 20% streetwise market stall barker with an optimistic streak. It's 30% chilled and accepting of life as it is. The remaining 50% is the kind of deep reflection that gives you access to his deepest and truest thoughts and feelings.

Of course, the album isn't compartmentalised like that. The different elements bleed into each other, which makes for a unique sounding record. The effect is like a concept album, the concept being his own life and character. In another part of his life he's a football commentator for Brentford FC, so his lyrics have a way with quick witted words and telling images.

'Encyclopedi-ite' is a blast of pure power pop. 'Funny Love' is calmer and chilled. 'Teetotal' takes you deeper, drifting into the memory of far away thoughts. 'Want In' is the kind of song the Pied Piper would play to keep his followers on track. It's full of exhortations and encouragement, a true energiser. 'Christmas Is Cold' - apologies to those who start Christmas on Christmas Eve - is testimony to his pop sensibilities. It's a classic, sad Christmas song with bells, an oompah brass band and an exquisitely perfect shiver before the end.

Billy Reeves is a one man gateway to the world of pop as it would sound in a perfect world.

Taster Track : Want In

Railcard : Railcard

Best for : Returning to music that was your first love and will be your last. (Thanks John Miles!)

( This is the EP cover. The album is the same design but on a white background which doesn't work on the page.)

How can a band named after an item that is so functional and administrative make music that is so contented and easy to love? I think I've stumbled across the answer.

Rachel Love helped form the band Dolly Mixture in 1978, while she was still at school. Her music was what she made as she approached independence, leaving home to make her own way and build her own life. Dolly Mixture split in 1984. Her solo career kicked off in 2021, as she approached her 60s. Typically that's an age when you can escape the tyranny of work and responsibilities and return to what you love doing best.

And that brings us to Railcard who, on 'Narcissus' and throughout this album, turn the clock back to the early waves of Indie. There seems to be a quiet revival underway that looks back to the vibe of Sarah Records. Heavenly returned with an excellent album. The Perfect English Weather may have come along a little later, but they've nailed the sound. The Field Mice are no more, but The Gentle Spring are carrying on their legacy. Even in America, The Corner Laughers have attached their music to this particular bandwagon. It's a massively encouraging development, and Railcard fit right in.

This is music that's nostalgic in sound and memories. They've explicitly recorded a song called 'Born In '62' - all £50 weekly wages, TV detector vans and a guitar that sounds like a ticking clock. There are songs about disco and Northern Soul and the new delights that are opening up with the 'Railcard'.

The band, wherever they started, may be older now but they sound so appealingly young. They keep it sweet and simple on the all too brief 'Cherry Plum'. They allow themselves to be mildly psychedelic on 'Revolutionary Calendar'. They love the sounds of classic pop, are not afraid to wear their influences on their sleeve and they have the confidence to revisit them. On 'Slow Train' they harmonise gently and beautifully. They can laugh at themselves on 'Disco Loadout' but never to the extent of self parody. Songs weave their way around each member of the band, creating a strong sense of happy togetherness. 'Think About That' is about nothing less than the enduring power of pop, making a mockery of feeling that you can't and shouldn't go back.

Railcard neatly package the things we love about music in one album. It's a place to return to time and time again.

Taster Track : Narcissus

Instant Holograms on Metal Film : Stereolab

Best for : An exhilarating musical journey

Stereolab are another of those bands I don't know as well as I feel I should. They're not completely unknown to me, but I've never taken the opportunity to explore them in depth. And I now know that exploration is the key to appreciating and loving their sound.

When you listen to Stereolab, you cede control to them completely. They'll take you on a mystery tour down musical by ways and cul de sacs. They'll queue jump and drive you the wrong way down one way streets to ensure that you have a journey you'll always remember but never be able to recreate.

This is one of the most, and one of the least poppy sounds you'll hear. They're at home making the kind of music to soundtrack a film or video game, and as likely to be found in the lounge as soaring above wide open spaces. They are constantly inventive and experimenting. It's a close call sometimes to decide if they are writing instrumentals or songs. It's easy and accurate to categorise them as electropop, but that doesn't paint the complete picture. Stereolab's songs are strange beasts, growing into unaccustomed forms as if stumbled across in enchanted forests.

Take the album's opening section. The brief 'Mystical Plosives' is the kind of snippet that you'd have playing as you made a cup of tea. Before you can settle down though, you're catapulted into the opening of 'Aerial Troubles' and its weird blend of folk vocals and cathedral chants before abruptly gathering itself into and out of catchy, melodic electropop before returning to the cup of tea music. It's disruptive, but in a very good way. 'Melodie Is A Wound' breaks the rules in its scanning to make something perfect, before collapsing into an extended prog fade out.

Their bright, busy melodies borrow from lounge music as much as pop. 'Immortal Hands' meanders like jazz, and brings the feel of a band who, after a few minutes, might look up in surprise and ask "Are you still there?" Make sure you are. 'Esemplastic Creeping Eruption' plays with sound, not because it needs to, but because it can, so why wouldn't it? 'If You Remember I Forgot How To Dream Pt,1' has a bass line with an ear worm groove that will leave you inevitably hooked. 'Pt 2' serves to remind you that if the key to Stereolab is exploration, their lasting hallmark is their groove.

Let Stereolab be your guide to new musical worlds and spaces.

Taster Track : Melodie Is A Wound

Objects, Beings & Parrots : Urlaub In Polen

Best for : Capturing the full range of a synthesiser

Urlaub In Polen make a fair stab at providing all electronic things to all men. They've made the classic album of two halves, full on mosh pit electronica upfront, and a more reflective second half. You'll think you have a hold on it when it slips into something unexpected and different.

It's the noisier part that's more immediate. They flick a switch and, before you know it, you're moving compulsively to the rhythms and beats. This is music with an almost physical presence, music that reminds us that sound is made up of pressure waves. It's not something you hear, but something you feel.

For large parts of this album the music is as relentless as machinery and as turbo charged as a high performance car. The duo are from Cologne in Germany but their songs reek of sweat, not perfume. They're made for floors covered in sawdust and spilled drinks, not carpets. 'Abacus' is hard electronic music with a contagious middle eastern dance feel. It builds through a pounding rhythm that finds itself gradually covered with a squally, noisy topping. You're going to move compulsively to 'Washing Machine'.

It's during 'Washing Machine' that you feel the first hint that there's more to the band than first meets the ears. When the song drops into a quiet, meditative, almost distracted passage, it feels unsettling like those moments when power suddenly goes off during a gig. You feel it's not supposed to happen.

It's actually a sign of control. Urlaub In Polen can take you from tight rhythms to disregulated meltdown in the space of four minute, They're as comfortable with the tight feel of Krautrock as they are with the loose bagginess of the Happy Mondays, as they show on 'Face Of Reason'. 'Objects, Beings and Parrots' is as ambient as it can be. The main instruments on 'Jaki's Love Theme' are treated guitars and a muted trumpet. It sounds as sincere as the earlier tracks attempt to blow you away.

Urlaub In Polen make music that doesn't feel human but can trigger human emotions, including energy, some alienation and occasional tenderness. They're great.

Taster Track : Abacus

Tell Me It's A Dream : Rosa Walton

Best for : Building confidence in the future of bright, indie pop rock

Apparently guitar pop / rock, clever and literate or otherwise, is dead. Apparently Rosa Walton didn't receive the memo.

She's one half of Let's Eat Grandma, darlings of the indie music press from a few years ago. She reunites with Jenny Hollingworth, her partner in that band on one song, 'Prettier Things', but before you get too excited by that, this is undoubtedly a Rosa Walton recording in tone from start to finish.

Walton brings a refreshing, independent air to her music. She's unconcerned with meeting anyone's expectations other than her own and nearly three million Spotify listeners suggests that's the right decision. She's also low key on social media, preferring to stay rooted in her real life no matter how that feels.

Everything about this record is attractive - its clean sound, its refusal to wallow in bad times and its upbeat positivity demonstrating an ability to shrug shoulders, move on and make something good out of any experiences. These songs are a shot of life, a soundtrack to a good day and a source of optimism. 'July' is a touchstone for the album, just a little woozy as if you've had half a glass of wine too much on a warm day.

Her songs are fuelled by a momentum that suggests she can't wait to reach the end and move on to the next exciting instalment. She's like a small kid opening their birthday presents, or anyone binge watching their favourite TV show with their best friend. Her voice retains the wide eyed wonder of arriving in a brave new world. It's both appealing and catching. In its way, it's wholesome but never boring. These aren't songs you'll hear played in arenas. They haven't had to be over produced to sound good there. They're songs for fans not event surfers.

Highlights are many, and they include 'Heart to Heartbreak', 'Sorry Anyway', 'Prettier Things' and 'Romance is Dead On.'

Rosa Walton gives you songs with the welcome, tingling itch of great pop.

Taster Track : Heart to Heartbreak

Sages (Echoes Edition) : Sages

Best for : Stirring up emotional memories and death bed scenes

Sages are a collaboration between Olafur Arnalds - nu classical figurehead, composer of the Broadchurch soundtrack and, further back in time, drummer for Icelandic hardcore punk and metal band 'Fighting Shit' - and Loreen, winner of Sweden's idol 2004 and Eurovision in 2012 and 2023.

You might like to take a moment to ponder how that collaboration came about. While you do that, I'll explain that this is effectively an EP of four songs, supplemented by four remixes. 'Echoes' is not remixed and 'In The Sound Of Breathing' receives a double makeover.

You might also ask yourself where's the middle ground between them? I can answer that. The music they make together is firmly on Arnald's side of the collaboration. 'In The Sound Of Breathing' contains his hallmark of emotional strings and fractured electronics. They capture the feeling of emotional crises coming to a head and temporarily receding. 'Unknowing' is music that depicts difficult times, explored as the unresolved dreams of deepest sleep. This is music from the dark side of life, the music for irreversible losses and the consequences of self-destruction.

It could be a depressing listen but it's not. It's deeply emotional. It's true that there are few examples of Arnalds' gift for heart breaking melodies, but there are a few moments that lift the songs. 'Echoes' contains a small sense of rebirth and recovery within it. The sound of steadily marching feet suggests progress away from the devastation contained elsewhere. 'Opening' gains momentum mid-way through as a clubbier influence comes to the fore. The remix of 'Unknowing' introduces the loveliness of Lara Samogye on harp, a lighter touch than you will find elsewhere. It works well. The second remix of 'In The Sound Of Breathing' chills down to become a luxurious stretch.

I've saved the biggest surprise for last. Loreen's vocals are a wonderful match for Arnald's compositions. They're breathy, on the cusp of tears but just avoiding total collapse. She shows complete empathy for the music and the feeling it contains. The distance travelled from Idol and Eurovision couldn't be greater.

Together Arnalds and Loreen have created the soundtrack to an art house film that proves surprisingly engrossing.

Taster Track : In The Sound Of Breathing (George Fitzgerald Remix)

Distance In Static : Bonobo

Best for : Respecting an artist's right to make the music they choose.

Bonobo has made a good down tempo club album. Unfortunately, and it's certainly more to do with my lazy desire for something catchy and hummable than a criticism of the skills required to create the ambient atmospheres you'll find within, there's nothing here to rival 'Kong' or 'Nightlite.'

Approach it with an open mind. Let it wash over and around you. Accept it for what it is and you'll find compositional and technical skills in abundance. I'd never dream of wandering back in time to Leonardo da Vinci's studio and asking if he thought the Mona Lisa would benefit from a toothier grin, so my slight disappointment with 'Distance In Static' should be irrelevant. This is for you, when you're in a thoughtful, meditative and reflective mood. Then it presses all the right buttons.

'Distance In Static' is ambient dance music for waking up to, with the emphasis on ambient. Its beats are gentle, its promised euphoria more a slight quickening of the pulse than a headlong rush towards ecstasy. Overall, and fuelled by false expectations, it's a bit of a tease. On something like 'Uncasually' the expected release never arrives. It comes near and then recedes, like the smile on an upset child that arrives before they are ready to forgive you.

The tension between control and release is kept on a firm leash. Maybe that's why, whilst it's always tuneful, there's not much in the way of memorable melodies to signpost the way ahead. Not every record has to feel necessary, but this is an album that feels as if it wants to be.

One strength is in the choice of collaborators to be his vocalists. All are better than good, and all bring something from different cultures and heritages. On 'Talk To Me' Nicole Miglis is vulnerable, sad and desperate and makes the track. Joy Crookes reaches out across 'Always On Your Side', sadness still to the fore, to create a true highlight. Take into account the mid eastern influences of 'Shokufen' and you can feel that Bonobo has made a record for the whole world, but in doing so he has sacrificed his own personality and identity.

I'll listen to this again with more realistic expectations. Until then the music, pretty and well constructed as it is, is not enough.

Taster Track : Always On your Side