Of the small coterie of singer-songwriters loosely affiliated with prolific LA-based producer/session guy Jon Brion — an impressive group including Rufus Wainwright, Aimee Mann, Elliott Smith, and the Eels’ Mark Everett — perhaps the least celebrated has been former Grant Lee Buffalo frontman Grant-Lee Phillips. Zoë’s new expanded reissue of 2000’s self-released Ladies’ Love Oracle, his first post-Buffalo solo disc, illustrates why that is while suggesting there might be room for re-examination.

Like all of Brion’s buddies, Phillips is obsessed with the Beatles, a creative preoccupation that suffuses Oracle’s carefully constructed, delicately arranged pop songs (which Phillips recorded entirely by himself in Brion’s basement). This isn’t a problem, especially on dreamy Lennon-ish ballads like "You’re a Pony" and "Nothin’ Is for Sure." What’s troubling is that he never goes beyond this apparent homage to fold in the distinctive artistry that made GLB’s pastoral psychedelia such an undervalued commodity in mid-’90s alterna-rock. The result is a bland but solid piece of work from a songwriter who’s capable of more.