Album: David Holmes, The Holy Pictures (Mercury)

In between all the film soundtracks, remixes, iPhone campaigns and other commissions – not forgetting the establishment of his own film production company, Canderblinks – it's a miracle that David Holmes finds the time to work on his own projects.

But when he does, the results are always engrossing. For 2003's The Free Association, he reinvented jazz-rock fusion for a new millennium; now, with The Holy Pictures, he pays tribute to his late mother, and the other valued people in his life, through a series of songs and soundscapes heavily influenced by Krautrock, particularly the infectious Neu! motorik groove.

That's the juggernaut carrying tracks such as the single "I Heard Wonders" and "Holy Pictures", on which Holmes's soft, understated vocal recalls the murmur of The Jesus and Mary Chain's Jim Reid. Elsewhere, the swirling psych-rock backdrop to "Kill Her With Kindness" irresistibly recalls the likes of Joy Zipper and Viva Voce, Stateside fellow travellers on the Trans Europe Express.

Pick of the album:'I Heard Wonders', 'Holy Pictures', 'The Ballad of Sarah and Jack', 'Kill Her With Kindness'