About five years ago I found an email in my inbox, out of the blue, from Thomas Dolby. Not his management firm, not an assistant, just Thomas himself. After many years in the tech world, including the creation of ringtone technology used in pretty much every cell phone to this day, Thomas had decided to get back in the world of music.

Later, I came to know Thomas' preference for working with people closely and pulling together a small team, something I myself prefer. He found me via a referral through someone who I had worked with previous, and after a few emails we met at a restaurant outside of San Francisco. Since then, it's been a sheer delight to work with him, and in addition to being one of the most modest, non-ego driven musicians I have ever met, he's also extremely bright and delightful.

Since our meeting, we've licensed "She Blinded Me With Science" many times--for a shampoo commercial, a Nip/Tuck episode, and even a dancing hamster, to name a few--as well as his penned "New Toy" for Target, bringing in Lene Lovich herself to re-record her original version, and "Hyperactive". From that, Thomas began touring and released a CD and DVD retrospective of his work, The Sole Inhabitant, which combined the great video artistry of Johnny Dekam and Thomas's unique and exquisite live musical performance and storytelling. Live at SxSW followed shortly thereafter, the result of a venture to Austin in a Zune sponsored tour bus, despite the entire Mac laptop toting crew it carried.

Thomas is always full of surprises--from the people he knows from his musical career and through his work as Music Director for the yearly TED Conferences, to coming up with PR concepts I wish I had thought of first--and he often brings new collaborations to his music as well. Technically, creatively, and most important talent-wise, his ability to come up with hooks, moods and mixes are elegant, oftentimes beautiful, and always stand up to repeated listens.

So again I was happily surprised when a re-mix of the Radiohead song "Nude"--a track that the band released in stems to offer for re-mixing to musicians large and small--arrived in my inbox recently. Thomas thought, why not, and the result is the same elegant touch he uses for his own work. It's a very un-showoff-ish piece, delicate and ethereal, and the result I think is lovely.

You can listen to it here,

And you can read Thomas's own writings about it here.