Gizmo Varillas, the UK based Spanish singer songwriter, has created a genre elusive sound that accessibly merges his refreshingly varied musical influences and endless list of instruments he performs.

With a timely message that resonates with many, he creates powerful combinations of simple but profound Marley-esque lyrics driven by Paul Simon melodies, John Frusciante guitars and an ever-evolving roster of Latin and afro influences it is hard to keep up.

His music, however, unquestionably offers a powerful remedy for the distressing headlines piling up these days, and this time that’s deliberate. Like El Dorado, its predecessor – an album distinguished by its cheerful air of enthusiastic idealism, but nonetheless penetrated by realism – DREAMING OF BETTER DAYS acknowledges mankind’s darker sides, and seeks to find light therein. It’s a quality that might be considered as rare as it is indispensable.

“I’m a hopeless romantic,” VARILLAS concedes happily, “an optimist, for sure. We hear so much negative stuff about the world, but I always try to focus on the better side of humanity. If I only listened to the news, I’d only have a distorted version of reality. I know, though, that there’s a world out there full of good people.” This sanguine approach to life is charmingly reflected in the title to his second album, and permeates many of its songs, too. Such sentiments aren’t, however, restricted to his lyrics, though these radiate an unusual positivity: on the exquisite ‘Fever, Fever’, for instance, he sings in a timely fashion of “tearing down these walls we have between us”, while the quietly shuffling ‘Love Heals With Time’ offers comfort to anyone who’s “lost… in the noise”, and ‘One People’ presents a succinct, opportune, and infectious reminder to “get together now”. But no: his convictions are evident in the mood of his music, too, which calls upon the warm sounds of his roots, as well as more widespread musical sources, and employs a vast armoury of exotic instruments to create an enviably, appealingly bittersweet – but still rarely less than effervescent – sound.