Van Hunt sounds more like drug-altered attempt to find one's ride home after a Grateful Dead show, than the name of a rising star in the world of contemporary R&B. But indeed Van's self-produced debut melds together an undeniably winning potion of influences past and present, as well as an original take on a much neglected genre - once the province of such geniuses as Al Green, Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield.

True you could point to more recent influences, Babyface, D, Angelo, Craig David, but Van Hunt seems to be on the trail of something even more universal and ultimately more unifying. It's a nice dream, the whole "Ebony and Ivory" thing, an angle, I should point out, that Ben Harper is also working to great success.

Van Hunt is certainly more of a romantic, in the tradition of Stevie Wonder, he orchestrates a dozen songs that defy you not to tap your foot or hum along. Love and the difficulties that come with or without it, is the stuff of many of these songs - but this guy possesses a preternatural gift for laying it out there in the most lush and lavish fashion. Most impressively he does so with an originality that rears up in your face on about every other track.

Track one "Dust" comes out of the gates like a Steely Dan song sung by Babyface, the second track ironically titled "Seconds of Pleasure" is easily the worst tune on the album, and had me worried - it sounds like a throwaway Prince tune from his Vault of 10,000 songs. Fortunately the rest of the record offers plenty of Pleasure. "Down In Hell" starts off with an homage to Hendrix' sweeter guitar interludes, and "What Can I Say" sounds like a cover of a Rufus Wainwright song. He segues between retro to avant garde from verse to chorus and every track is literally an improvement over the previous. I don't know if this was intentional, but save for the first track, this record gets better the deeper you get.

Yes, the further you go, the more this record transcends the barriers of era and genre and just is, what it is, incredible music. In the years to come I think this album might just be referred to as VH1, because Van Hunt has offered up a brilliant debut that I'd bet the farm will take the airwaves by storm. Never has a genre of music been so ready for a savior. And I don't think mankind has evolved far enough to concieve of a device that could accurately measure how much pussy this guy's gonna get.