Whether in Pavement, Silver Jews or with the Jicks, Stephen Malkmus has never been shy of ploughing his own musical furrow, and this seventh album with the latter is a case in point. At first, the songs don’t seem to follow logic or convention. There are no archetypal big choruses; guitar patterns hurtle around like busy mice. However, Malkmus’s fuzzy logic soon takes hold, and seemingly off-kilter arrangements emerge as highly accessible, killer tunes. Over 11 of them, his sonic palette extends from cosmic and country rock to sun-drenched neo-psychedelia and prog-pop, with Television-style guitar virtuosity and XTC-type jerky rhythms.

Cast Off starts with a piano reminiscent of David Bowie’s Hunky Dory, but blasts into distorted pop. Refute, a playful duet with Kim Gordon and the strings-embellished Solid Silk are lovely. Middle America, another of his sweetest melodies, features the sudden admission, “Men are scum, I won’t deny”. Malkmus is not overly known as a political songwriter, but the state of the union also obliquely informs Bike Lane, bass-grinding new wave in which the 2015 death of Freddie Gray from injuries sustained in police custody (“his life expectancy was max 25”) is drily cast against the officers’ down time (“kick off your jackboots, it’s time to unwind!”). Like the Fall or Captain Beefheart, Malkmus’s use of language is idiosyncratic (“numbskull chip off some old block, dagger glasses for the kid” anybody?) but demands immersion, while – at 51 – his musical gifts are as bountiful as ever.