After the sleek refined pop of albums four and five, discovering Bertine Zetlitz’s first three albums is quite a surprising journey. Collectively they embody fluid, confident, leftfield music, with lyrical chops that expose Bertine as a fine songwriter first, a pop singer second. In my head at least, a sometimes scary hybrid of Jane Siberry and Bjork.

So Beautiful appears on her third album, Sweet Injections. Beginning with IDM-style crushed drums and whispered vocals, she implores “Listen to this: sometimes things don’t turn out the way they should, the way you thought they would.”

Sweet Injections – iTunes UK

My last track of the day for this year.

There are some musicians who lay their lives down over a piano, then inexplicably destroy that relationship by introducing other instruments – usually guitars. I’ve said it before, but perhaps not as explicitly: the piano is the most extraordinary musical instrument created. Learn it well and it’s probably all you need to express your musical desires and your emotions. I yearned for years (decades?) for an artist to come along who understood this, but without the technical burden (and constraints) of actually being taught to play. Self-discovery is so much more thrilling. You can here this in Flying.

Flying comes from 2003’s I Can’t Let You In single. An instrumental piece created for Chris Ohlsen’s film 824, its strength comes from its ability to sound simultaneously composed and improvised. Runs of notes turn into pounding chords, then break up and disperse. Hooks and other motifs disappear and reappear almost by chance. There’s the brief tentative opening sequence, and a pause, just milliseconds too long, before the second phase of the piece gathers confidence. This darts around before casually returning to the main theme of the song – more delicate than previously heard. And we’re only half way through.

As for the rest? Well, you know the drill:

I Can’t Let You In – Antoinette’s Revenge (Store)
Hannah Fury

And I thought that all Sweden did was cutesy-pop.

Lizette &’s fashion might allude to crunching gothic terror, but their (her?) music is anything but. Breathe is one of the best constructed songs I’ve heard this year. It’s power lies in its simplicity and attention to detail. Match this with an equally simple but mesmerising video and you have a track of the day:

Lizette &: This Is – iTunes UK
Lizette &’s Website

I’ve always preferred the electronic fixated version of Billie Ray Martin, rather than the Memphis oriented sound of 18 Carat Garbage. Twisted Lover, which was once to be a single, is taken from 2003’s BRM New Demos.

Twisted Lover takes its hooks and cues from Yazoo, Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer, adding those dark, torch song vocals that she’s renown for.

iTunes UK

2003’s single I Can’t Let You In is the annex to Hannah’s debut album, The Thing That Feels, containing as it does two songs that complete the set inspired by Gregory Maguire’s book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Recorded at the same time as the debut and therefore retaining its style, Someone Speaks Softly is the second of these, which despite its storyline ultimately highlights the cycle of love and loss, and closes with utterly disarming backing vocals.

I Can’t Let You In – Antoinette’s Revenge

It could well be that everyone went ga ga over Tina’s album In The Red. I did. But before that were two previous albums: 2001’s Fuel and Notes, which followed two years later, both released on her Finest Gramophone record label. These are now available on iTunes UK.

Break of Day comes from Notes, and is built on the simplest one note bass, to point out the chords, accompanied by meandering, minimal, percussive guitar. This mood changes towards the climax of the song, when acoustic guitar is added, and Tina’s backing vocals come in. The overall feel is that of organic intelligent dance music. It’s magnificent.

[Fuel – iTunes UK]
[Notes – iTunes UK]

Butterfly Boucher wants her fans to write reviews of her 2003 album Flutterby on iTunes. That means condensing this into something more manageable, and frankly I’ll be struggling. You see, it’s an album that makes me giddy with joy everytime I hear it. Hmm.. is that perhaps too short?

Soul Back:
I must have left it on the table
Or the chair
Not sure
I didn’t feel it it was painless
Oh dear
I guess I’m just a little careless!
I’ll confess
When the music’s on
Everything else gets lost!

I think I like it
I think I like it
I think I’d like my soul back
I think I like it
I think I like it
I think I’d like my soul back

There’s no video for Soul Back, so here’s the one for I Can’t Make Me, which made me go ‘ooh!’ three years ago.