While the popular British musician never learned to read music or study piano, he dutifully recorded each piece of orchestration on an early computerized Fairlight synthesizer for the conductor to transpose onto sheets so members of the London Philharmonic studio orchestra could bang out the finished arrangements under limited time and budgetary constraints.

To his horror, Dolby quickly began to detect that aspects of his material were not coming across exactly as he had planned. Apparently, the conductor was as inexperienced at manipulating the playback controls of the electronic keyboard as Dolby was at producing written arrangements.

“I stood there in the middle of a 96-piece orchestra thrilling at the sounds of my compositions,” Dolby writes on his blog at ThomasDolby.com. “But every few bars, something was off. I made mental notes as they played each cue through. I had to walk from one section to the next saying, ‘OK cellos… that part that goes ‘da DAAA da da…’ what’s your top note there? …A-flat?’ I thought about it and said ‘…OK…. change that to an A natural will you?’ They obviously thought I was a complete dunderhead.”

Perhaps it was experiences like these with larger ensembles, along with all the added costs and potential for logistical nightmares, that helped motivate Dolby to return full-time to the music business in 2006 as a solo act. Albeit, his two-phase US tour came complete with a virtual orchestra packed into a tight stage rig of synthesizers, beat boxes, sequencers, computers and multi-media projection equipment, once again putting Dolby in complete control of each performance.

The first leg of the tour last summer also provided an opportunity to work out material for his latest release, The Sole Inhabitant. The DVD-side of the project containing a full solo concert was filmed at the Berklee Performance Center in Boston, and an audio CD took the best versions of songs from two gigs at Martyrs in Chicago.

The set list is the same for both the audio and video recording. The DVD, however, contains some excellent bonus features including an academic presentation Dolby gave to Berklee students on the construction of his “orchestra in a box,” the meticulously crafted rig that allows him to become the sole inhabitant backed by lush and complicated computerized backing arrangements on stage every night.

During a separate bonus DVD interview, Dolby explains that while he prefers to give backing musicians the latitude to interpret the material he is planning to perform whenever possible, on the current outings he was looking for a “single-minded experience,” which gave him the opportunity to fully command his retrospective takes on a host of existing material.

That and having the level of control that comes when one isn’t required to bring in outside investors to finance a full band tour, he added.

In an interview Dolby did with me back in the fall he observed that large-scale tours tend to draw audiences that predominantly wanted to be there for the sake of being there, and the energy in the room tends to be unfocused. This creates a terrible experience for any core group of fans who want to become fully immersed every intricate nuance of his performance.

In choosing some smaller, more intimate venues across the country, Dolby was able to enjoy the acoustic quality inherent in smaller rooms and theaters, while getting him up close and personal with core fans. The Sole Inhabitant DVD showcases the storyteller aspect of these performances – if you decide to play the show with song introductions (the DVD comes with an intro “on” or “off” option.)

Another wonderful bonus on the DVD is the brief clip entitled “Building a Song,” which appears to have been filmed during a soundcheck as audience members were trickling in to one of Dolby’s solo outings. This relatively short but critical part of the package incorporates some of what Dolby describes in the “studio interview,” and “rig voyage,” segments of the project, about the way he conceives layers of sounds and rhythms that eventually become the final arrangement.

The CD version of The Sole Inhabitant is a great addition to one’s audio collection, especially for those who enjoyed Dolby’s hits like “Hyperactive,” “One of Our Submarines is Missing” and “She Blinded Me With Science.” I think anyone who picks up this live collection for the popular material can’t help but gain a deeper appreciation for his talent as a songwriter and arranger, especially going in armed with the knowledge that he’s producing most of the material from an emotional place devoid of the technical foundation one brings in as students of music theory and particular instruments.

The Sole Inhabitant, in either video or audio form, serves to excite even passing fans who have been wondering what Dolby has been up to in recent years. But it is at the same time an extremely exciting project because it shows that this exceptionally talented performer appears to be hitting stride in his own right.

As a lifelong fan myself, I look at The Sole Inhabitant as a familiar appetizer to enjoy while the master chef heads back into the kitchen, as promised, to begin cooking up some new and special concoction to be served up sometime later in 2007. And the fact that Thomas Dolby can afford to do it on his own terms and in his own time, simply means when he feels that serving of new material is ready, it will likely exceed all expectations.

The Sole Inhabitant CD is available as a download from iTunes, or get the CD or DVD via mail order from Amazon.com. A limited number of autographed CDs and DVDs are available through CDbaby.com. Learn more about Thomas Dolby at ThomasDolby.com.