‘Odelay’, Becks second album, is even more consistently engaging than ‘Mellow Gold’. Co-produced by the Dust Brothers (who were responsible for the Beastie Boys psychedelic hip-hop epic, ‘Pauls Boutique’), ‘Odelay’ winds up touching on a number of disparate strands – folk and country, grungy garage rock, electro, exotica, old-school rap, touches of noise rock – but despite the kitchen sink approach, everything flows very smoothly.

Most of the songs here betray Beck’s roots as an anti-folk singer – he reworks blues structures (“Devil’s Haircut”), country (“Sissyneck”), soul (“Hotwax”), folk (“Ramshackle”) and rap (“Where It’s At”) – but each track twists conventions. Like a mosaic, all the details add up to a picture greater than its parts, so wh