Partly nurtured by lockdown, but definitely inspired by his new life amid the lakes and castles of the Republic of Ireland’s midlands, this is Robson as sharp and versatile as ever. One moment we’re spooked amid the nasty gnash and slash of ‘Rumours Abound, Energy Persists’, the next we’re beguiled by an acoustic Irish air, replete with Christine Tobin’s wordless vox on the aptly titled ‘New Turf’. Yet this modulates into a percussively kinetic skronk, as Robson’s New York years crash back into his current idyll. So it’s no surprise when a samba turns into seagulls on ‘Straight Story’ (no story’s ever straight with Robson) or on one of the songs of the year, ‘So Many Bees’, a long solo meditation, spins on its heels through wind chimes, a siren’s voice, an epic chord and, well, a host of bees. If that all sounds like too many handbrake turns at once, it’s Robson’ s gift to find what he calls ‘the fluidity of inter connectedness’, to discover the logic between polarities. Oh, yeah, and he still rocks.