Matthew Dear is undoubtedly the brightest star in the techno universe right now; I can’t remember holding as much anticipation for an electronic album as this one. His debut ‘Leave Luck To Heaven’ has evolved into somewhat of a seminal release over the years, and proved to be a high watermark for 21st century techno. But while ‘Leave Luck To Heaven’ was driven by its sharp edges and icy precision, Dear’s brilliant follow up (discounting the secondary ‘Backstroke’ and the propulsive ‘Suckfish’ under his spiky Audion guise) is warmly obtuse and loosely inventive. ‘Asa Breed’ could even be summed up by comparative images of its creator; in 2003 he was clad in black with a Richie Hawtin style combover, peering out from shadows as if tentative of his craft. Now with his hair wild and wooly, clad in tight leather pants and a plain white shirt, he could be mistaken doing vox for Wolfmother. Further images of Dear shaking a tambourine with lithe hips accompanying a drummer and bassist give even greater indications of Dear’s intentions.

Don’t panic though, Dear has not turned rock & roll shaman, nor is anything on ‘Asa Breed’ even close to a Wolfmother record. In fact, ‘Asa Breed’ is one of the year’s most uniquely mesmerising releases, detached and otherworldly yet totally engaging in that, at heart, it is essentially a pop album. Dear has, by and large, ditched the serpentine instrumentals that broke up his debut and focused on his disparate monotone vocal cuts. ‘Asa Breed’ is all the better for it, and although you will hear all kinds of comparisons regarding Dear’s vocal stylings (bits of Bowie here, Byrne there), his isolated, husky drone is unique in contemporary music.

He conjures the Manchurian post punk of The Fall and Joy Division on lead single ‘Deserter’, with a rolling bass driven menace that Peter Hook only wishes he could still fashion. It’s a stylistic shift that no doubt stunned fans on release, and truthfully there is little here to please fans of linear cuts like ‘Dog Days’, although the taught skipping funk of ‘Neighborhoods’ comes close. ‘Elementary Lover’ is deliciously chaotic, with ghostly steel drums and scratchy guitars wading through Dear’s multitracked vocal and stormy sea of bass. The sparse clicks of ‘Will Gravity Win’ is a starry eyed homage to Plastikman, and it’s sharply contrasted by the pretty, loved up funk of ‘Pom Pom’ with Dear cynically decrying, “I’ve got to figure out love”.

Dear spellbinds on the second half of the album, with acoustic ventures and 21st century soul jams. ‘Give Me More’ and ‘Midnight Lovers’ are brooding and abstract; Dear musing, “I awake in the middle of a daze after dreaming about plans I’ll never make, but that’s ok, there’s no holes in my life,” all over a solemn guitar that touches the sadness of Nick Drake. ‘Good To Be Alive’ is the unexpected and undisputed highlight, the warm Hammond chords offset by a drunken robo groove and sharply camp hand claps that crash gloriously into a wailing wall of synths; you can just see Dear smirking at his controlled chaos. Closer ‘Vine To Vine’ is a dreary and druggy Texan jam, and as the acoustic guitar stops abruptly and an unearthly, almost indecipherable voice murmurs “go home, this isn’t your land now,” you realise you have been treated to a weirdly wonderful journey into the head of a mercurial modern talent.