This record will come as a surprise to those who’ve tracked the impressive career of Brit bassist Dudley Phillips, whose enviable credentials on both double and electric bass includes work with a who’s who of UK jazz greats alongside studio sessions and tours with the likes of Mark Knopfler, Robert Wyatt, Bill Withers, June Tabor, Cedar Walton and Amy Winehouse among others. So this charming six-string-bass-guitar-led outing comes as something of a curveball in his guilefully groovy career. While solo bass albums are nothing new – see Eberhard Weber, Michael Manring, Victor Wooten, Charnett Moffett and Steve Lawson for starters – Phillips’ approach has more in common with the wit and whimsy of the aforementioned Wyatt, Eureka-era Jim O’Rourke and even 10cc’s slyly sophisticated pop than the usual bass histrionics shred-fest. This is thanks to his own softly urgent singing and a deep well of musical references that include fuzzy folk reels, sea shanties and lithe classical and Spanish guitar-esque chord melodies on ‘Santa Caterina [Hermeto]’. Above all, this is a deeply personal soliloquy, albeit with Ian Thomas providing subtle drums on several cuts, with Phillips dispensing world weary wisdom, particularly on ‘Western People’, with its appeal to the social media obsessed ‘me’ generation to kindly stop showing off about nothing for a minute. It’s a plea worth heeding as Phillips conjures lush layers of sophisticated harmony, dexterous melodies and often unexpected contrapuntal themes, all from his basses, to create a thoroughly engrossing album.