Jamie is Jim. Let's clear that up straight away. No easy feat to follow up 2005's Multiply, which garnered many fans and an astounding collection of superlatives still ringing across the world. That album, Jamie's second solo, caught most of us off-guard. After a decade of electronic experimentation that had brought him from underground techno to the science-funk of Super_Collider (with Cristian Vogel), and into his blistering live show, few people expected Jamie to make an honest-to-goodness soul and funk record. Jamie had let those classic influences fuse with his own deeply felt songwriting, meticulous production skills, and most of all, that flipping voice.

Hard to believe that the bespectacled self-confessed music nerd who'd grown up fetishising samplers and boxes that went squelch, could belt it out like a Berry Gordy discovery circa 1961. And if you'd seen him live there was another glimpse of the old Jekyll-Hyde routine. Slyly self-deprecating gent becomes relentless sonic showman. The audience were there to dance, and now the man wrapped in gold lamé is crooning, spluttering, laughing, transforming words into sounds, noise into signal, a body-rocking beat conjured out of nowhere, and then over that, a rousing harmony. On the edge between control and chaos, Jamie turned music inside out - and it was an exhilarating experience.

Multiply, by contrast, was steeped in the sincere effort of its creator to write ten great songs. Music to switch on the morning. A soundtrack to sunshine. It was as if after letting off so much manic, deconstructive steam in the live shows, Jamie was free to carefully put it all together in the studio. He was coming back around again.

Along with plaudits, critical comparisons to musical legends came flying. According to the reviews, Jamie was at various times, Little Richard, Jimi, Otis, Sly, Prince, Marvin, Stevie or some mashed-up combo of them all. Fellow musicians got their people to contact his people: last year Jools Holland tinkled ivories with him on later; Sir Elton declared himself a fan; Feist sought him out as 'Energy Arranger' (and background vocalist) for her hit album, The Reminder; and Beck brought Jamie along to record with him and to join his massive US tour.

While the influences that infused Multiply are still present and correct on Jim, it's a bolder, more promiscuously diverse album, with Jamie restlessly shifting across gospel, disco and even folk, and that chunk of 'hillbilly funk' thrown in for good measure. "I prefer to think of it as timeless material," Jamie says, "I haven't tried to hide the influences. This is the music I love."