The one-time Beastie Boy has been ploughing his own lo-fi, gently soulful and funkily inventive furrow for a decade now. His fourth cut nods to greasy 1970s funk, easy-listening jazz and sixties-tinged pop.
They're all proper three-minute pop songs, marking a move away from the usual eclectic collection of instrumentals.
He hasn't the strongest of voices, but there's an unforced sense of fun that makes this record a delight, particularly on the modestly proportioned epic Black Butterfly, and the Rhodes-dominated Summer Blue.
It's certainly not polished, but it's far from rough, and the keyboard-in-the-living-room sound adds an immediacy that gives the record some much-needed bounce.
