The Abel (sic) Tasmans were an anomaly in the Flying Nun stable. They aimed for baroque pop rather than garage rock, and even when their execution didn’t measure up to their ambitions it made a change from trebly guitars. A decade after calling it quits, core Tasmans Graeme Humphreys and Peter Keen have regrouped to make an album that at last fulfils those baroque dreams.
And they have spared no expense, or else called in a lot of favours. Horns and string quartets augment a rhythm section centred on Humphreys’ keyboards, creating almost-symphonic settings for Peter Keen’s gorgeous white-chocolate voice. And the songs justify the extravagance. In an age when “melodic” has become shorthand for anything with more than one chord, here are tunes that truly soar. The strongest of them – “Bright Shining Star”, “Eyes of a Blue Dog”, “You Smiled” – bring to mind great pop symphonists like Jimmy Webb or Van Dyke Parks. And while the overall mood is romantic, it is also as quirky as you would expect from a pair who, in their other lives, are an oceanographer and a Radio Sport host.

Let’s have something more recent. This is easily one of my favourite albums of the last few years. Graeme 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.

Speaking of New Zealand, this is really the fifth ABLE TASMANS LP, their first since the Auckland, NZ band split following 1995’s Store in a Cool Place. Keyboardist GRAEME HUMPHREYS and singer PETER KEEN were their main songwriters. And yet, this is a fresh dimension, so maybe a new name was warranted. The Overflow is one of the deepest orchestral pop records you’ll hear this or any year. It sounds like someone took out a second mortgage to finance its recording, with its crescendoing strings, cooled down horns, even elegiac euphonium (from the above-mentioned DON MCGLASHAN!), and most of all, Humphreys’ dominating piano so sonorous, it’s like its little hammers are pounding your head.

Songwriter Graeme Humphreys and vocalist Peter Keen show how it’s done with a beautiful album full of lush melodies and sparse arrangements. Any fan of grown-up pop music from U2 to Coldplay or Crowded House will be pleasantly surprised by the maturity and effortless majesty of this album. Keen’s vocals are sweet while ex-Sports Cafe and Radio Sport host Humphreys shows himself to be a true allrounder. A great album that stands repeated listens and has me digging out all my old Able Tasmans stuff. As Sarah from Coventry says, “It’s brilliant!”.