There's a strong case to be made for the importance of New Age, soft rock, smooth jazz and "adult contemporary" as influences on modern electronic and indie music. Hear me out. Previously taboo realms of unambiguous, technically-minded schmaltz are inspiring visionary musicians like Oneohtrix Point Never, Dolphins into the Future, Teengirl Fantasy and other vanguards of the "New New Age." The tacky sheen of adult contemporary recordings also factors into the micro-sampled filigree around which intoxicating jams by electronic artists the Field and Com Truise are built.

These outré genres appear - with increasing frequency - in the most unlikely of places. Recently while browsing a Belgian boutique label's online catalog, I spotted a tempting cassette by New Age demigod Iasos (his visuals have appeared in Teengirl Fantasy's live show, and a bootleg of his "Jeweled Space" is a popular blog commodity). Pitchfork Media's Larry Fitzmaurice, in conversation with Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!'s Tim Heidecker (about his forthcoming semi-sincere Soft Rock record) casually mentioned that "a lot of soft rock sounds ... are currently en vogue in the indie scene right now."

Enter Scott Cossu, a local musician with as fine a soft rock pedigree as they come. After falling hard for "Manhattan Underground" - his slippery, peppy and jazzy inclusion on the Windham Hill Records Sampler '89 - I've been on board with Scott Cossu, 100 percent irony-free. There's been some speculation as to whether or not today's youthful New New Agers are snickering when they revisit and recontextualize yesterday's chaptalized sounds (chorus-heavy guitar, showy jazz fills, sensual saxophone, chimes). But why disdain the music of someone like Cossu, who, over the course 10 LPs and 30 years of recording, has explored international influences with the impeccable, studio-polished musicianship typical of soft rock (one review called his music "as lovingly assembled as high quality woodworking")? In college, Cossu immersed himself in the music of Ecuador, living in the Andes Mountains and Chota Valley while furthering his ethnomusicology studies.  He then alchemized his amassed knowledge into records with shamelessly cheesy titles like "Emerald Pathways," "Stained Glass Memories" and, simply, "Mountain."

Cossu's a laudable pianist, and his compositions have a playful precision to them. While his lite jazz isn't for everyone, in some circles, Cossu's type of music is seeming less and less like a guilty pleasure, and more like an unexpected muse - the last sacred temple of musical artistry, the ultimate unmolested fount of sample-able material and inspiration. Given enough time, even Franzia box wine will age into something tolerable, just as Cossuian soft rock has been reappraised as strangely subversive in its anachronistic cheesiness. 

Scott Cossu performs on Saturday with the violinist and mezzo-soprano vocalist Jessica Blinn. It's going to rock. Softly.

[Traditions Café, Scott Cossu with Jessica Blinn, Saturday, Jan. 29, 8 p.m., $12, All ages, 300 Fifth Ave. S.W., Olympia, 360.705.2819]