Martina Topley-Bird: Quixotic

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * *)

Martina Topley-Bird first came to notice as the vocal foil to the paranoid wheezings of Tricky on the early albums of the Brit trip-hop star. She faded from view to raise the now separated pair's daughter, but here finally makes it to solo album stage, just as her ex's latest, Vulnerable, has shown that even when he stops being deliberately difficult, no one much cares any longer for the man behind that great debut of his, 1995's Maxinquaye.

He features around the edges of Topley-Bird's album - mumbling underneath co-write Ragga - but most of Quixotic is, well, not as Tricky as you might think.

After a gospel intro, the soul-rock power-surge of Need One - featuring Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme and Mark Lanegan on guitar and vocals respectively - gets this album off to a great start, while reminding of the compelling qualities to Topley-Bird's tough but tender voice.

But if that song risks having having little that follows to match it energy-wise, the rest manages a mix of elegant ballads (Anything, Lullaby, Sandpaper Kisses), vintage-soul (Soul Food) or drafting in some PJ Harvey-styled blues-rock voodoo (Too Tough To Die, I Wanna Be There).

With some tepid numbers towards the end, it doesn't end as well as it starts, but much of Quixotic shows Topley-Bird's first album is a take-notice affair, one that says she's far more than a footnote on someone else's flagging career.

Label: Independiente