Half Japanese: Adventure (digital outlets)

Elsewhere's long-term affair with Half Japanese has been something of a hiding to nowhere: I doubt we would have convinced a single reader to dive into the albums we have reviewed.

But we persist because they are quirky and a little bonkers but, slowly over the past decade or so, have moved more towards an audience than an audience has moved towards them.

The problem is having that prospective audience listen.

Well, dare we suggest this album – poppy, optimistic, proper songs about love and the good things in life – is the one for you if you are even vaguely “prospective”.

Start with the spoken word Magnificent over a lovely melody (HJ founder Jad Fair says “I thought I might not add a vocal, it works so well as an instrumental”) which celebrates living in the now: “This is our time and it is magnificent.”

The speak-sing Lemonade Sunset is equally cheery, about how “everyone is lucky to live in this wonderful world of wonderment”.

These sentiments – like Van Morrison's current Remembering Now, his most cheerful album in decades -- may not capture the zeitgeist of Trumpism, wars and flashpoints around the globe, but they are a reminder that there is a world of beauty and wonder out there beyond the doom scrolling and body counts.

If you haven't tasted Half Japanese before start slowly here with those two samplers and move back to the beginning.

It's still quirky and jerky, but it will bring a smile in these tough times.

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You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here