It's a difficult thing to find an esteemed artist in a happy place; not because listeners really want artists to suffer for their art, but because finding the silver linings in sadness makes for a more rewarding listen than dredging up melancholy while surrounded by pleasantness. Happy follows a long period of composition commissions for Neset: 'Viaduct', 'Snowmelt' and 'Geyser' for London Sinfonietta, a saxophone concerto 'MANMADE' for the Bergen Philharmonic, plus a handful of concertos and chamber pieces elsewhere. Fans might have wanted a fresh take on the hyper-rhythmic, broadly tonal explosions of frenetic energy they’ve become accustomed to. This is certainly something different – but is it something new?

Happy may yet mark the start of an ‘electric Neset’ period, with Elliot Galvin's fuzzy keyboards taking centre stage, and electronically manipulated textures slotting into Neset's steadfastly acoustic soundworld for the first time. But the directions the album moves in – pop, 1980s funk, moody, minimal tunes in an uneven metre – have all been done before, and it's difficult to hear Happy as anything other than a highly accomplished musician falling back on the past, rather than finding genuinely interesting new avenues to explore. Happy is a slick affair, with a handful of thought-provoking moments (found in the second half, on ‘Islands’ and ‘Diamonds’) and the playing is generally fabulous – especially Neset's own virtuosic flourishes – but it all comes too easily, and ends up sounding rather empty.