The playful, geekily ingenious multi-skilled Londoner Jacob Collier began dazzling audiences a year ago, and his album debut is a set of originals and covers that includes the brooding Beach Boys classic of the title. They sound as if they are being played by a raft of sleek funk bands, but are in fact executed by Collier alone. The jazz-schooled 21-year-old has already turned studio and live techniques upside down; he plays most instruments, and can sing anything from soul to scat. Such gymnastics can serve to sideline heart and meaning, as on the Stevie Wonderish Woke Up Today or the croony, falsetto-backed You and I. But Collier’s exuberance is very infectious, and his virtuosity (check out the anthemic, fast-modulating Hajanga, or astonishing doo-wop/bebop improv on Flintstones) often stunning, as is his jazz-rooted fearlessness in skewing melodies and displacing beats. In the powerful, ambivalent Down the Line, he sounds somewhere between Bobby McFerrin and D’Angelo and plays some mean postbop piano, too. What he does next with all this talent is a fascinating prospect.
