Album: Karl Hyde, Edgeland (Universal)

"There's a doll doing spacewalks through Lewisham at 2am," begins Hyde on his first solo album, setting its appealing tone of urban lyricism and kitchen-sink surrealism.

When he's in Underworld, his Burroughsian cut-ups and live-wire energy give the music focus and set the band apart. But with the best will in the world, he's a vocalist not a singer, and if you replace the techno with ambient tones and piano noodles, he can sound a little reedy and exposed.