In some ways, though, that’s exactly what we should expect. The man behind Silicon, New Zealand’s Kody Nielson, has garnered an impressive reputation at home with his musical abilities and general boldness. His former band, The Mint Chicks, which he founded with his brother Ruban Nielson of the genre-bending and audience-pleasing Unknown Mortal Orchestra, gained a cult following for its explosive music and stage antics (on at least one occasion involving chainsaws). Both Nielson brothers have since left punk and chainsaws behind for more subdued forms of music—Ruban with UMO’s funky psych-rock, and now, Kody, who follows his brother’s album from earlier this year, Multi-Love, with equal musical dexterity.

Employing synth voices in sparse, straightforward but clever compositions and singing in a muted falsetto, Silicon creates synthpop that—despite the genre’s reputation for electronic dispassionateness—manages to be soulful. One of the highest praises I can give it is that it contains shades of D’Angelo, both in vocal sound and in seemingly simple instrumental lines that break down into hidden complexity. Though Silicon occasionally fails to push through, its oddness and electronic effects distancing it from the listener, it does share with the “R&B Jesus” a kind of mesmerizing sleepiness, seducing with easygoing confidence and music routed in solid musicianship.