Brigid Boden: "A & M Records" Dial-a-track code: 1311

Purists will probably hate this album.

As in traditional "heads" and "house" fans. The loss is theirs, because Dublin-born Brigid Boden has come up with a genre-bending and genre-bonding classic, a debut album that drags Irish airs and rhythms out on to the dance- club floor and betrays neither music in the process. As in Mint Go On, which opens with a few fiddle lines followed immediately by a brace of hip-hop beats. Even She Moved Through The Fair, reconstructed as I'll Always Stay, is hauled into the next century. Rapper JC 001 turns up on Oh How I Cry, which also features characteristically ethereal vocals by Brigid and lyrics that evidently emanate from her love of poetry. Stunning.

Martin Okasili: "The Invisible History of the Black Celt" (Warner) Dial-a-track code: 1421

Don't be put off by the title of this album or the erroneous notion that it's mostly an academic treatise set to music. This is soul music, in its essence, even if its style is nearer rock and traditional music. And whether or not you buy into Okasili's belief that the soul delineated in this suite of songs is the soul of the "Black Celt", anyone can relate to the rage, anguish, poetry and pure musicality spiralling forth from tracks like Survival Techniques, Freedom and its final cut, Redeemed.

Though, clearly, being black and having suffered social alienation as a result of that fact, would help you furrow deeper into a song like I Don't Have To Do A Damn Thing But Stay Black and Die. A stunning debut.

Luscious Jackson: Fever In, Fever Out Dial-a-track code: 1531

While an endorsement from Michael Stipe may not quite be the kiss of death that praise from Morrissey is, his encouragement doesn't seem to have helped Luscious Jackson. On the fringe of the spotlight for a few years, they have never really made that final leap, and Fever 10, Fever Out has that same "almost" feel to it.

Mined from the same vein as Suzanne Vega's wry observations, it is closer to Vega's Nine Objects Of Desire than anything else this year. It too has that jazzy, late-night bass throughout and a pleasant smoothness, but not Vega's odd moment of gorgeous insight. Take A Ride makes some nice noises, like most of the songs on this accomplished, if never fully engaging, album.