Todd Almond’s song cycle sits somewhere between a hero’s journey and a meditation on contemporary romantic anxiety. Beginning with a naturalistic meet-cute, it rapidly descends into a surreal, occasionally witty and sometime sinister surrealism, in which the battle to reach a potential lover waiting at the foot of the stairs becomes a meandering epic of obstacles and distractions.

The three-piece band (harp, bass guitar and piano) proffer a jazzy take on songs of longing and adventure with Almond’s lyrics having the panache and narrative energy of a relaxed beat poet. Along the way, he introduces bizarre antagonists, including a vampire and a pyramid scheme that’s revealed to be a cult. There’s a vague suggestion that each obstacle represents some aspect of contemporary life, whether it is the ambiguity of hook-up culture’s code of desire, or the attraction of surrendering ambition to groupthink. 

The laid-back atmosphere of the music never transforms the episodes into urgency, rather conjuring a dreamy warmth, which expresses an oneiric drift of this story. The performance is comfortably confident, and it is only in a brief interlude, when he invents the waiting lover’s thoughts on the protagonist’s absence, that the stakes of the journey are explicit.

I’m Almost There, Summerhall, until 26 August, 2.45pm; main picture: Mihaela Bodlovic.