Bill Laurance's first truly solo gigs this year included improvisations on the theme of Brexit, letting him catch that day's emotional weather in himself and the crowd. This fifth solo album, self-released and with only co-producer Nic Hard as a collaborator, similarly sees him floating freer than ever from the Snarky Puppy mothership, while usefully tethered to a challenging concept. Cables considers the dystopian potential of our technological expansion, most obviously on a surprisingly lovely elegy to Kubrick's psychotic computer, ‘HAL’. ‘End of Scarcity’, inspired by veteran science presenter James Burke's work on “nano-fabricators” with the potential to synthesise anything from the atom up, begins with a similarly chilling, Alexa-style voice setting out her enslaved owner's relentless schedule. Parallel experiments with production and the solo keyboardist's palette are of more practical interest. ‘Ebb Tide’ begins as simply pretty piano, till the atmospheric washes hovering and humming at its edge gradually thicken the air, and Laurance rakes his keys with piercing ugliness. ‘Cables’, too, feels made of heavy air and heavy chords, as if fat with information. Soft piano rolls and the familiar Miles echoes of a Fender Rhodes are displaced by the piano suddenly jagged high in the mix. There are less compelling moments of more conventional fusion. But by restricting himself to his family of instruments and one resonant idea, Laurance finds sharper focus than Snarky Puppy's most recent album.