Featured pop concert: Jesse Boykins III

Jesse Boykins III has offered quite a few funky innovations and soulful reveries since his 2008-09 releases, the

Dopamine: My Life on My Back

EP and his first full-length,

The Beauty Created

. Yet the alt-R&B multi-instrumentalist and singer, who sports a five-octave vocal range, has remained an enigma to all but his devoted cult following. "I don't feel as if I have purposely operated under the radar," Boykins says. "I have simply taken my time and paid close attention with each release."

His indie-label releases have included another EP (Way of a Wayfarer from 2011) and another full-length, on Ninja Tune (Zulu Guru, 2012). But his new album, Love Apparatus, should put him on the map with its passionate, insightful lyrics and a warm, languid house music-based brand of soul. By the way, that voice of his needs a lot of care. Asked how he maintains his range, Boykins jokes, "Lots and lots of practice. Lots and lots of vocal rest. Lots and lots of challenging my vocal abilities. Lots and lots of tea."

Many listeners attuned to indie rock and dance have already heard Boykins through single tracks on albums from the Internet ("Higher Times"), Chin Chin ("Toot d'Amore"), and Foreign Exchange ("Make Me a Fool"). Those were part of Boykins' plans for a slow introduction to diverse and varied audiences. "From those songs people should come to expect honesty in my own music," he says. "They should expect quality. They should expect to be challenged emotionally when listening to my music. They should expect good vibes."

Boykins established an image of himself as a true-to-love romancer with his first two recorded efforts, and a sonic landscaper with the next two, at times finding his works compared to that of J'Davey, Bilal, Dwele, and, to a larger extent, Prince.

Boykins gets the comparisons, but sees his path as his own. "I think that I do have my own voice and I have paved my own way as far as my sound goes," he says. "That's not to take away from the artists that I'm compared to, because they are all great artists. My vision is my vision. Damn, people comparing me to Prince, though? I'll take that as a real compliment."

Back in 2010, Boykins started work on "B4 the Night Is Thru," with producer/instrumentalist Machine Drum, a dense, warm midtempo electro-track that set the stage for friendship, as well as the eerie vibes, complex percussion, and deep romancing in their collaboration, Love Apparatus. The new album, Boykins' most expansive effort by far, comes from a desire to help the world while helping himself to good love with greater meaning. For all the worldliness of Love Apparatus, there is an intimacy to his words, so poignant you'd think you were listening in on a postcoital chat. "Yes, most of these songs are inspired by personal choice and by some of my peers' life experiences. For the most part, we all go through the same things in the same life."