In the seven years since her previous solo album, Kari Jahnsen (bka Farao) has become a mother of two and focused musically on her more straightforward pop duo, Ultraflex. But her palette on Magical Thinking doesn’t betray that any time has passed at all; it’s a breezy affair that touches on R&B, ambient jazz and plenty of synth.

The album is a bit of a grab bag of different moods and textures. ‘Spiritual Garden’ and the slinky cover of Brandy’s ‘Full Moon’ cover off the R&B interests, while ‘Waiting for You’ and ‘Dreamy Ride’ look further back into new wave and funk. The former in particular feels indebted to Chic in its groovy licks.

In the second half of the album, starting with the title track, we get more of a sense of Jahnsen’s jazz influences leading to some excellent arrangements with vaguely spiritual, somewhat vapid lyrics that aren’t a million miles from a ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ stencil. However, ‘Voice Continues,’ featuring Laraaji, is a superlative cut. The legendary figure brings his shimmering zither, gossamer light and unassuming at first, but it soon begins to guide the song to celestial heights, perfectly complementing a Jahnsen vocal more in sprechgesang mode, reminiscent of her countrywoman, Jenny Hval.

There are short interludes and instrumentals throughout that are deployed fairly haphazardly: a short phone conversation, a new age-leaning bells and zither combo, a curious pitch-shifted ditty. These don’t add a whole lot beyond mood-enhancement, and ending the album with two in a row is an odd move that means the album peters out quietly. They highlight the ephemeral pleasures of Farao’s music generally, but the lack of cohesion on this album particularly, as the variety of different styles don’t always add up to more than the sum of their parts, the album coasting on vibes rather than any real foundation.