When I Was A Boy

JANE SIBERRY has a voice so exceptional it could stir absolutely anyone, even those whose idea of romance involves fifteen pints of Guinness and an eleventh hour lunge at the least intimidating person in the vicinity.

She has all the vocal range of Bjork, but with the serrated edges removed. Hers is a curved, loping voice that lulls the listener into strange songs where angels and darkness and tigers (spelt 'tygers', inexplicably) all have starring roles. She's odd, but not in the tiring, wacky, hippy chick way. Her singularity is natural, and possibly all the more scary for that.

When I Was A Boy, her sixth album, is co-produced by Brian Eno, features vocal contributions from k.d. lang, and includes tracks comprised entirely of ringing bells side by side with nine minute meandering hymns like 'The Vigil'. Her voice soars over everything, and often the instrumentation is cut back to bare whispers of piano or guitar and she sounds even more remarkable.

'Love Is Everything' - a farewell note to an unfaithful partner rather than the slush-filled ballad that the name implies - appears in two guises and is brittle and beautiful on both occasions. 'Sweet Incarnadine' started life as an extended improvisation and was edited down to just under seven minutes, and there are moments during it when you'd swear that no-one could reach those notes or sound as if they ache so much.

'An Angel Stepped Down' is bizarre; something that sounds like Madonna's 'Vogue' intercut with screaming angels, while 'The Vigil' has a dream-like lyric murmured so low that you strain to hear her and then realise that she's wittering on about Bambi. And somehow it all seems to make a very odd kind of sense.

Jane Siberry can even make you believe that Canadians must be the most fascinating people in the world. That's quite an achievement.

• Lorraine Freeney