I was a big fan of Joanna Wallfisch's 2016 album Gardens In My Mind and the magical soundworld it inhabited. Far Away From Any Place Called Home offers something similarly moving and immersive, a recording inspired by a six-week musical tour down the west coast of the US by bicycle – a total of 1,154 miles from Portland to Santa Monica, taking in 16 solo shows – which Wallfisch has dubbed ‘The Great Song Cycle’. Framed by the translucent sound of reverse piano, and incorporating both spoken word and voice memos recorded on the road, the album is at once boldly individual and sublimely subtle, from the pedal steel sheen of the title-track which suddenly erupts into a seraphic chorus just over the halfway point, to the unmistakable timbre of bass clarinet which lights up ‘Green Sleeping Bag’. Driven by a slightly crazed toy piano ostinato and painting a peculiar picture of a flirty lifeguard attempting to offload a fairground plastic animal, ‘Rex The Travelling Dog’ is possibly the only song you'll hear this year that features a kazoo solo (“This was the open road where anything goes”). The Hermann Hesse poem which inspired ‘Mountain Pass’ ends with the line, “The world has become lovelier”. After listening to this most personal of albums, it certainly has.