Regina Spektor

Spektor’s gormlessly cute onstage persona and art-kook dress sense (punky black accessorised with clothes-pegs: clearly the new safety pins) shouldn’t distract from her formidable songwriting skills. Classically trained piano virtuosity is animated by a grunge spirit and crackpot vocal experimentation that’s equal parts jazz diva and Noo Yoik punkette. Each song is a mix of psychedelia and human observation that is closer to Dylan with a piano and a singing voice than obvious reference point Tori Amos. Many are just plain loopy fun, like ‘Reginasaurus’: “if I was a great big city I'd be reginapolis/ no one would be sickly or achey in my thriving metropolis/ unless of course they came down with bad case of reginitis_"