Recently I needed some new clothes, so ever the good consumer I decided to help our dwindling GDP by braving the January sales.

I went to one store, a small, trendy-ish sort of place but part of a successful chain, and amid despairing at the ‘ironic’ patterns and logos on t-shirts, was suddenly struck that the in-store music was Teddy Thompson’s ‘Things I Do’. I went to another, a much bigger store (with a food section for the middle classes, you know the one…) and there it was his ‘Don’t Know What I Was Thinking’. I left confused.

Here is the strange thing about Teddy Thompson: to many, and with good reason, he is just a bit MOR, a bit clean-cut, a bit corny, indeed suitable for accompanying you round department stores. Ostensibly, he is just too smooth.

But then you listen to his music, and especially his words, and it is clear this is an artist with some considerable balls, a wicked sense of humour, an astute pop sensibility and a singing voice that lifts him beyond those cruel first impressions.

For example, his new album A Piece Of What You Need contains moments of doubt and darkness that have no business in superstores. At one point he even swears (gasp) and sings he will “sleep with anyone who gets in my way”.

“There’s usually a lot of self-loathing on my records and I tend to take a lot out on myself, which I think is quite gallant of me,” he jokes as he talks from his New York apartment. “It’s the obvious thing to do if you’re trying to write something that is honest and from the heart.”

A Piece Of What You Need marks a striking step forward in Thompson’s career, a career both blighted and blessed by the fact he is of course the son of Richard and Linda Thompson. The songs suggest an individual insecure and afraid, but aware of the hilarity of that – a key theme for Thompson ever since his 2000 debut.

What makes this record really special though, is the production from Marius de Vries, arguably the most imaginative producer around who has previously sculpted masterpieces by Neil Finn and one of Thompson’s best friends, Rufus Wainwright.

“He’s what I call a ‘proper’ producer,” Thompson says in his refined home-counties accent, “a hands-on producer that does everything instead of putting their feet on top of the desk and doing the crossword puzzle.”

He enlisted de Vries because he needed a guiding presence that could help him take a measured, concentrated approach to recording and writing, rather than rely on “seeing how it goes and letting things fall where they may”, a method that characterised his previous records, including his genuinely brilliant album of country standards, 2006’s Upfront and Down Low.

“Things were more realised because we did some pre-production and planning, so things were laid out more carefully and taken to their conclusions. It was a more comprehensive piece of work.

“Records tend to be quite quickly made, disposable and a bit plastic, and I felt with this record we put a lot of forethought into it. I set out to make a pop record but a more substantial one and one that didn’t come out of someone’s bedroom. You can do that but you’ve gotta be special.

“Everything’s a bit flimsy these days. I think we should all be looking to do something a bit more substantial. If you look around, furniture is made from plywood rather than oak and CDs fall apart in two seconds. I’m an old-fashioned guy and I like well-built things. That goes from the music business right through to buildings and furniture.”

Thompson was born in London in 1976 but learnt his trade as a musician in Los Angeles, where he moved at the age of 18. He and his sister Kamila, an emerging singer-songwriter herself, established well-documented friendships with fellow second-generation artists Rufus and Martha Wainwright, both of whom he frequently collaborates with still. Thanks to the company he was keeping and the contacts he made, he released that self-titled first album. Then he was dropped by Virgin and it wasn’t until 2005 that Separate Ways was released, the album where he truly found his voice. The formula was black humour, considerable melodic skill and perhaps most of all a quite breathtaking voice that somewhat combined the drawl of his father and the force of Rufus.

Then came the country album, an “inevitable homage” he needed to get out of his system in order to “get rid of these evil country feelings”. It was a triumph, and was confirmation, if any was needed, that Thompson’s musical education, despite his parents being British folk musicians, was almost entirely American.

“I feel weirdly both, not that I’m too conflicted about it,” he says when asked which country he feels most affiliated with. “I feel really English – people that move away either blend in or stick out and I tend to stick out. I feel more English in New York and America.

“But I’ve lived in America for a long time now, 12-13 years, and I feel like some weird hybrid, and I’ve always been obsessed with American music.”

The make-up of Teddy Thompson is clearly about combinations and seeming opposites. He is country and pop, English and American, easy-listening and brutally caustic all at the same time. Take for example the video to ‘In My Arms’, where he is performing in the street for some pretty girl. The scenes alternate between him earnestly performing a love song and he and this girl gazing into each other’s eyes, arms entwined.

Then the mood is destroyed by a cameo from Rufus Wainwright who lasciviously cavorts about dressed as some kind of gay Elvis – the look in his eyes at wicked odds with the theme of this charming clip.

The two sides to Thompson healthily fuse to form the curiously engrossing musician he is… except he can’t see that. For him, the divided Teddy Thompson proves that he is unsure of himself, and is never comfortable in his own skin, constantly yearning to be someone or something else. His startling explanation was: “I have visions of being something other than what I am all the time. I’m constantly struggling against the reality, I aim to be somebody different and better, but as time goes on you try to accept who you are a bit more and not look back at everything.

“But as soon as I’ve released an album I feel like I want to take it back and do it again. I feel instant regret for everything I do.”

Teddy Thompson plays Shepherd’s Bush Empire on 12 February 2009. For ticket information call 0870 771 2000.