London,

CDs of the week

The Magnetic Fields: Not the best showcase

British Sea Power: Absorbing lyrics

Djivan Gasparyan: An exceptional portrait

Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack Dejohnette: Trio in full fabulous flow

Pop from British Sea Power and American four-piece Alo, and a double album of superb jazz from Montreal.

POP
The Magnetic Fields
Distortion (Nonesuch)
***
Feedback fans should start the year with this latest wheeze from chief Magnetic Field Stephin Merritt. Having previously produced the epic romance collection 69 Love Songs and more concise i, on which every song began with that letter, here the New Yorker makes every instrument apart from the drums feed back, including piano and accordion. The constant background squall doesn't detract from great tunes such as Three-Way and Drive On, Driver, though it doesn't suit jauntier fare such as Too Drunk to Dream. A timely stunt, but not the best showcase for Merritt's singular talents. DAVID SMYTH

British Sea Power
Do You Like Rock Music? (Rough Trade)
***
Three albums in and British Sea Power are refining their approach and edging towards the mainstream. Do You Like Rock Music? showcases their strengths: a grandstanding, widescreen sound, heard to best effect on No Lucifer and the brief opener All in It; and absorbing lyrics which make little sense ("we dance like sparks from a muzzle" indeed), but cast a fascinating web. While they can be compared with acts from Arcade Fire to Coldplay, there's nobody quite like them. They haven't quite managed to write a genuinely memorable, lasting song yet, although the fierce Atom comes close. But their journey is far from over. JOHN AIZLEWOOD

Alo
Roses & Clover (Brushfire/Island)
***
Alo are a four-piece from Santa Barbara with a remarkable level of instinctive collective musicianship. Bass, guitar, keyboards and drums lock together to leave no room for any fancy noises, and all four members sing sweetly. The band have made it their business to seek out the groove, as is immediately apparent on the opening Maria, which carries distinct and pleasing echoes of the great Little Feat. Elsewhere, there are pronounced Caribbean influences. Perhaps, the songwriting is not of classic proportions, but on tunes such as the title track and Empty Vessel, there is evident delight in a job well done. PETE CLARK

Adele
19 (XL Recordings)
****
What with the Allens, Nashes and Winehouses, we've not been short of croaky female action in recent years and there's still more to come. This year will also see the arrival of Duffy, a Welsh soulbird with Dusty lungs and a love of the dramatic string swoop, and now we have every critic's tip for the top this year, Adele.

Many have readily pushed 19-year-old Adele Adkins into the Amy Winehouse corner (how that must pen and ink) because she has shades of Winehouse's updated retro jazzy-blues schtick going on. The fact that Adele also went to the BRIT School for Performing Arts adds a little timber to the comparison.

Yet there's more to Adele than being a mere Winehouse spin-off. Even though Winehouse's addled approach to most things seems to have lent weight to her cracked songs of love, loss and medication, for me they've always sounded slightly precision-tooled, too knowing by half, as if they've been written to complement her lifestyle.

Adele's blessing and curse, by way of contrast, is her naivety and youth. Certainly, if 19 had been written and released by a 25-year-old, then hackles would have been raised. But you only need listen to First Love, about halfway through 19, to realise that Adele is a bit special. Its setting couldn't be any simpler. A tinkled glockenspiel gently and simply frames the saddest song about young love you will ever hear: "So little to say yet so much time/forgive me first love but I'm tired/I need to taste a kiss from someone new".

It's a startling song. Only someone in their teens could get away with it, yet only someone with immense confidence would lay the song so bare. The temptation to bury it in gloopy strings would be too much for most but Adele is sure of the song's strength. Still, gorgeous first track Daydreamer should already have alerted you to Adele's way with melancholy. With only an unadorned acoustic guitar for accompaniment she tells a deep-blue tale of a fickle boy who "Feels up his girl like he's never felt her figure before." It's stupendously good.

She doesn't just do sad, though. Cold Shoulder, with its instrumentation reminiscent of Massive Attack's Unfinished Sympathy, is a belting tune, while Right As Rain is a gently funky paean to not trying too hard.

However, 19's not immediate - it takes time for its loveliness to reveal itself. A sure sign of its quality is the fact that Adele has buried one of her finest songs, first single Hometown Glory, right at the end. Only the truly confident would have the cojones to do that. PAUL CONNOLLY

Sia
Some People Have Real Problems (Monkey Puzzle)
**
Anyone who saw last year's unforgettably moving final-ever episode of Six Feet Under will have Sia's Breathe Me, the song that soundtracked the astonishing last five minutes, stuck fast in their memory. Away from that felicitous collaboration, Sia's mostly known for having worked with the Noughties' Shakatak, wallpaperfunksters Zero 7, and it's to their undistinguished template that she adheres on her third album. While a few of the songs manage to rouse themselves briefly from their slumber (probably woken by their own snores) - Little Black Sandals is quite sweet - Sia's drowsy, nasal jazz slur starts to really irritate even before the hideous cover of The Kinks' I Go To Sleep has you drifting off yourself. Yawn. PAUL CONNOLLY

WORLD
Djivan Gasparyan
The Soul of Armenia (Network)
****
The soft, melancholy sound of the reedy duduk (an apricot-wood oboe) has become a symbol of Armenia, particularly in the hands of its most celebrated player Djivan Gasparyan. In 1948 he was among a group who played for Stalin and 40 years later he played for film scores including Dead Man Walking and Gladiator as well as giving concerts round the world. Marking his 80th birthday, this double album features solo recordings, ensembles and collaborations with American guitarist Michael Wood as well as flamenco, Turkish and Sufi musicians. This is an exceptional portrait of the duduk's greatest proponent. SIMON BROUGHTON

JAZZ
Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack Dejohnette
My Foolish Heart (ECM)
*****
Subtitled Live at Montreux, this double album captures Jarrett's "standards trio" in full fabulous flow at the 2001 jazz festival. So remarkable is the empathy, energy and creativity of this performance that one can only wonder why ECM sat on it for six years. Recording-rights issues could be responsible, but Jarrett spending half an hour in stride-piano mode might have alarmed producer Manfred Eicher. If so, he needn't have worried. These superb versions of Ain't Misbehavin', Honeysuckle Rose and You Took Advantage of Me sit well with the contemporary mastery elsewhere. JACK MASSARIK

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