There were encouraging noises in recent times: collaborations with Nancy Sinatra and Charlotte Gainsbourg, a weird and wonderful appearance at the Hogwarts Ball in ‘Harry Potter & The Goblet Of Fire’, show-stealing cameos at the Leonard Cohen tribute shows, and a glorious download-only comeback anthem to commemorate Live 8, ‘Cunts Are Still Running The World’ (included here as a hidden track).

And now, praise be, a full-length solo debut, with a little help from old muckers like Richard Hawley (whose influence on the sound of this record can’t be overstated) and Steve Mackey. Consider this the return of the thin white duke; the revenge of the nerd as full-grown man. Mind you, there’s no manifesto to compare with the class-war-in-the-bedroom scenarios of ‘I Spy’, or the highlife horrors of ‘This Is Hardcore’. Nope, ‘Jarvis’ is all about the songs: carefully constructed, immaculately arranged and perfectly produced songs set to 60s chamber pop tapestries, spiked with the lyrical skills of Lee or Leonard or Serge, and a smattering of the post-punk/avant garde sensibilities of latter-day Scott Walker.

‘Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time’ is a glorious big band confection with nagging glam guitar hooks, and a caution to a female friend infatuated with a beau of dubious character. ‘Black Magic’ could be Lennon doing Buckley’s ‘Kangaroo’ with a band borrowed from Gene Pitney and production values cribbed from Dave Fridmann. ‘Heavy Weather’ is drop dead gorgeous Carnaby Street pop with chiming guitars. And Cocker’s knack with a self-mythologising line is still intact: ‘From A To I’ envisages the desultory end of the affair in grand terms (“So like the Roman Empire failed away / Let me tell ya we are going the same way”).

There are, of course, some dark episodes. ‘I Will Kill Again’ is a note from the bunker in which the deathly ladies’ man reflects on his retirement from the scene while fingering razors before the shaving mirror (“People tell ya, what a real nice guy ya are / So come and serenade them on your acoustic guitar / And don’t believe me if I claim to be your friend / Cos given half the chance I know that I will kill again” ); ‘Disney Time’ a malignant little tune with shimmering tremelo guitar, strings and chorale; ‘Tonite’ a dreamy ‘Baby-everything’s-fucked-so-let’s-go-out-tonight’ ballad.

But it’s far from a fatalistic record. In the closing fantasia ‘Quantum Theory’ (“Last night I slipped through time / To a parallel dimension”), Cocker the arch-ironist contrives an avowedly unironic happy ending, albeit one that takes place at the other end of a wormhole (“Everything is gonna be alright”), understanding that sometimes the listener is like a child at bedtime, wanting to be told everything’s okay, even – especially – if it’s a lie. But it’s the quality of the delusion that counts.

Ring them bells: ‘Jarvis’ is a stunning return.

One of Ireland’s foremost music and pop culture writers, Peter Murphy (b. 1968, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford) got a taste for journalism at the age of 17 when he won first place in an EU sponsored competition for young essayists. After ten days of being wined, dined and chauffeured around Europe on someone else’s tab, the only proviso being that he file a report at the end of it, he figured this was the way to live. But first, he had to get the rock ‘n’ roll bug out of his system, and spent most of the next decade playing drums with a succession of bands. He quit music to become a journalist in 1996, quickly establishing himself as a senior contributor to Hot Press. Since then he has written over 30 cover stories for the magazine, accumulating a portfolio of interviews that includes Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Nick Cave, Willie Nelson, Radiohead, Public Enemy, Shane MacGowan, George Clinton, Sonic Youth, Television, Henry Rollins, PJ Harvey, Richard Hell, David Johansen, Warren Zevon, Wim Wenders, Iain Banks, Will Self, William Gibson, Billy Bob Thornton, FW De Klerk and many others. His work has also appeared in the Bloodaxe Books anthology Dublines, the Sunday Independent (Ireland) plus international publications such as Rolling Stone (Australia) and Request (US). Miscellaneous assignments include writing the programme notes for jazz legend Miles Davis’ art exhibition hosted by the Davis Gallery in Dublin (2000), collaborations with cult author JT LeRoy for the American magazine Razor (2002), and co-producing Revelations, a two-hour radio documentary about The Frames (2003). He is frequently employed as a rent-a-mouth by the BBC and Irish national radio and television, is a contributor to the online archive Rocksbackpages.com and more recently gave a talk entitled Nocturnal Emissions at the ReJoyce symposium in the National College of Ireland, tracing the influence of James Joyce’s writings on Irish music. He has also been invited to contribute an essay to the liner notes of the 2004 remastered edition of Harry Smith’s Anthology Of American Folk Music, and is currently writing his first novel.