In a career that's gone largely unnoticed, Sam Phillips has endured a previous incarnation as a religious singer (under the name Leslie Phillips), starred in the movie Die Hard With a Vengeance (although she didn't speak a word), been the wife of an esteemed producer/songwriter (T. Bone Burnett), and somehow managed to create what is now four solo albums as Sam Phillips (nearly ten in total). Even more unique is that each of her efforts is endowed with a markedly different stylistic theme.

Her secular debut, The Indescribable Wow, was a polished pure pop masterpiece. The follow-up, Cruel Inventions, incorporated disjointed sounds and rhythms invoking a thinking (wo)man's alternative/industrial collage. 1994's Martinis And Bikinis was a partially acknowledged Beatles tribute.

So what musical persona is Sam Phillips adopting next? Well, this time out she's doing her best interpretation of an obligatory dark, acid jazz, drugged out album. And, as usual, she's doing a great job.

Looser and more conceptual than her previous albums, Omnipop is alternately dismal and witty. Like Gotham City's house band must sound, the assembled musicians on hand take pleasure in making a racket out of nothing. Usually plastic-smooth studio regulars like Aimee Mann's Jon Brion; Michael Penn's Patrick Warren; Edie Brickell's Brad Houser and Matt Chamberlain; and top flight session-aces Jim Keltner, Jerry Scheff, Paulinho Da Costa, and Mark Ribot take liberties in just the right places.

Matching Phillips' lead, "Animals On Wheels" takes the its line, "We can't get fast enough to go backwards/to take a second look," seriously with circus "om-pah" percussion and reversed guitar lines. Stark similes like, "I give up/You watch my lips/Like a pair of wrists that have never been slit," from "Help Yourself" and the under-a-minute double entendre of "Compulsive Gambler" sting repeatedly. Less digestible than her other albums, but somehow more rewarding, Sam Phillips thankfully continues to improvise her own version of pop.