Japanese pop these days continues to be a whimsical combination of Western ingredients mixed with Eastern flavors, all stir-fried and served up as a spicy, pancultural concoction. From Shonen Knife to Pizzicato Five, it's Brian Wilson filtered through Confucius by way of Hello Kitty – a Big Mac with a squizz of wasabi. And few of the artists that have emerged from the Land of the Rising Sun are as clever and as full of fun as Cornelius.

Cornelius is the nom de plume of one-man-band Keigo Oyamada, whose 1998 album "Fantasma" (his U.S. debut, his third in Japan), was a hodgepodge of sounds that evoked everything from cheesy Pong pings to Laurence Welk-ian polkas to Hanna-Barbera cartoon soundscapes. Cornelius – whose fondness for the original "Planet of the Apes" led him to filch the name of one of the film's more inquisitive characters – interwove disparate influences into pastiches that were so surreal it's as if they were the bewildered observations of a Martian on all things American. Which made his compositions – deceptively simple tunes built on melismatic structures – all the more engaging.

Cornelius kicked off the album on "Mic Check" by – what else? – checking his mic. Tracks like "Chapter 8 – Seashore and Horizon" – with its pretty and sad '60s pop sound, nasally vocal and unexpected breaks – evoked "King Midas"-era Hollies, but more knowing, less twee, and utterly surreal. Although "God Only Knows," with rude percussion pitted against a weightless ambiance, was not the Beach Boys song of the same name, it conjured a similar sense of yearning and regret. Overall, "Fantasma" was a wonderful mix-and-match mosaic of styles, influenced by everyone from ABBA to Black Sabbath to Vivaldi. Cornelius admitted at the time, "All these things suddenly spring up and get jumbled in my mind." That jumbling of sense and sonics was what made "Fantasma" such a revelation.

Following an extended period in which he collaborated with the likes of U.N.K.L.E. and Avalanches, Cornelius has returned with "Point," an album that's no less fanciful than "Fantasma" – its headphone effects on "Drop" must be heard to be believed – but the mishmash of influences feels more subsumed, more subtle. That's not to say it's not filled with unexpected twists and bizarre turns. "Another Point of View" is a tricky funk stew, "Tone Twilight Zone" is held aloft by twittering percussive effects and "I Hate Hate" could be Cornelius sitting in with thrash metallers King Crimson – so much eclecticism that somehow comes together nicely. Maybe it's because the emphasis on "Point" is not so much on melody and lyric as it is on moving and grooving – the perfect album to get down to or chill out with.

Not just an arch magpie, Cornelius manages the difficult trick of bridging several cultures, while sounding like nothing you've ever heard before. To paraphrase Charlton Heston's Taylor: "Damn it all to hell! You've really done it this time!"

Eliot Wilder has his own Web site at www.eliotwilder.com

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