Let’s have something more recent. This is easily one of my favourite albums of the last few years. Graham Humphreys and Peter Keen’s The Overflow is an absolute work of art.

If you know the Able Tasmans‘ music, then the sound of the record should come as no surprise to you (Humphreys and Keen were key figures in the influential Flying Nun band), but as a fan already, even I was knocked down by just how far the music has progressed. It has a maturity and a confidence about it — but more than that, it has a poetic and affecting quality that makes it stand out as an important record, not just a good one.

I could have chosen pretty much anything off this record to play to you, and — if you’ve got any sense — it would convince you that you need to have it in your collection.

But I chose Eyes of a Blue Dog for a couple of reasons. It sums the album up nicely, and it draws its title from a short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez that I kind of like.

I gave it to my radio drama students as an adaptation exercise, and they did some really interesting things with it.

But enough about the inspiration, listen to the inspired. The song both highlights the approach to the piano, and echoes the arrangements of classic Able Tasmans tracks, only even more lush.

I worked with Graham briefly at bFM in the late 80s, and although we never really intersected all that often, we seemed to get on. He was affable and laid back in an environment that was, at the time, institutionally aloof and cooler-than-thou.

He seems to lead a double life. On the one hand, he’s Graham Humphreys — the guy who creates achingly beautiful music on the piano. Soul of a poet stuff. Private and reserved — a supporting role to Peter Keen’s unassuming frontman. Not nearly enough people know that side of him.

On the other, he’s Graeme Hill — the guy on the TV and the radio that cracks jokes and talks about sports. Everybody knows that Graeme.

Those two sides of the one personality seem like they shouldn’t work together, but he’s pretty spectacularly good at both of them.

But my primary interest is in the former. He might be a good sports broadcaster and telly personality. He might even be a great one — I really wouldn’t be able to tell.

But I know a great musician and composer when I hear one.

Buy The Overflow. Seriously.