Followers of José James are going to be in for a big surprise with the release of While You Were Sleeping, the singer’s new album to be released by Blue Note in the summer. James has a habit of turning the tables on fixed expectations of his music, that’s part of his uniqueness, even though the approach is not without its risks.

‘While You Were Sleeping’, James’ fifth album named after a sad song from his own pen that opens with a Neil Young-like Harvest Moon-period guitar intro and post-daisy age keyboard swells (“she's gone/On the last train/never thought that she would go”), is so very different to No Beginning No End although the signs were there that James was on the move stylistically shifting away from the orthodox jazz singer some people assumed he was via nu soul, not that jazz has really quite summed up the singer’s open eared contemporary Gil-into-Withers approach evident from The Dreamer on.

Recorded in New York Sleeping retains key personnel from 2012’s No Beginning No End with keyboardist Kris Bowers, electric bassist Solomon Dorsey and drummer Richard Spaven the rhythm section bolstered by Memphis guitarist Brad Allen Williams. There’s more Hendrixian psych-rock in the sound (‘Angel’, ‘Anywhere U Go’ a little), less broken beat as a bedrock sound with a modern electronica wash placed on top, something James has dabbled with in the past working with Flying Lotus.

The least typical in the new consciousness, yet still heartland James paradoxically, is a pared down ‘Simply Beautiful’ an Al Green song (from I’m Still In Love With You) featuring trumpeter Takuya Kuroda whose Blue Note debut Rising Sun made such a mark earlier this year. A few of the tunes are co-writes with Solomon Dorsey (‘Anywhere U Go’, ‘Bodhisattva’) and James collaborates with the wider band on the organ led-off ‘Salaam’, the trippy ‘Bodhisattva’ written in Jakarta is one of the jazziest of the tunes, with a wah-’n’-sitar flavour to it built around Spaven’s very upright groove, deft smile-inducing deep bass beaming out from nowhere and loads of sustain against closed-mouth vocals. Singer Becca Stevens features on her own song the Joni-esque ‘Dragon’ duetting with the Minneapolis man, another surprise. There’s no monster track like ‘Trouble’ here but 'Bodhisattva’ comes close in terms of sheer possibility while the string quartet sound added to ‘4 Noble Truths’ (the best song lyrically again with a folk-rock intro) is yet another unexpected feature. Stephen Graham

_{José James plays Scala, London, on release night 7 July}