- One of the great delights in anyone’s musical journey is discovering artists along the way who continue to serve up the idiosyncratic goodness. England’s Robyn Hitchcock is one such musical artist, his solo output is legendary and traces right back to 1981’s Black Snake Diamond Role. In fact his idiosyncracy and goodness is second to none, there are at least twenty albums to testify to this.

Anything Robyn Hitchcock does is worth attention, even an album mostly of cover songs. The Man Upstairs, recorded in London at the end of last year with legendary producer Joe Boyd is a unique album in the canon of Hitchcock in that at least half the album is music by other people. This is his first foray into what Hitchcock describes in the accompanying presser as “a ‘Judy Collins album’, something that would’ve come out in 1967 - part well-known favorites, part personal discoveries, and part originals.”

The Man Upstairs, is a stripped back and mainly acoustic affair with the vocal right out front. It’s an excellently recorded work that really captures the spirit of Hitchock’s live aura, with guests featuring on cello, piano and harmonies to great effect. In this format it’s wonderful to rediscover the Psychedelic Furs' song The Ghost In You. It sounds like a song Robyn Hitchcock wrote, and that’s the charm of it. Like the other covers on the album such as The Doors' The Crystal Ship and Roxy Music’s To Turn You On, the covers all work excellently amongst the original material to give the album its own certain charisma. For further charm, as if it were needed, Hitchcock even tackles a song in French on the brand neworiginal Comme Toujours.

Really, what this album further demonstrates, more than anything -and on a record that's half covers, it's especially unusual- Robyn Hitchcock is a songwriter doing things on his terms. For around four decades its been this way, this is a musical artist who has gone about his craft operating on a different frequency, turning on those with the right smarts along the way. This is why the fans who love him are going to love this, and will get on board ever so quickly. For those who’ve only just come to learn of him, this may not be the best starting place, but that’s all beside the point. The point is that one discovers anyone. If you love intelligence in songwriting, and like something that gently massages the cerebral cortex, you’ll find it hard to better Robyn Hitchcock.

- Ian Powne.