SUFJAN STEVENS

I generally can't stand musical theatre. Whenever I have the misfortune of attending such a show I find myself wondering why I'm being shouted at by pompous phonies demanding I should have a glorious time. Get lost. But I have a feeling 'Illinois' could revolutionise Broadway. It's only fair for subtle beauty to have it's marvelous revenge. And what a strange album for an 'alternative' artist to make, so comfortably seated in old, homespun notions of community and it's unfolding tales and reminiscences. More Steinbeck than counter-culture. The far-reaching arrangements were ambitious and careful in their avoidance of the overwrought, with commanding chorals and ornate patterning creating elegant shape. Moving beyond the steadiness of confessional singer-songwriter safety, Stevens stretched himself into a vortex of storytelling, at times giddy with uplift then deciding to quietly devastate you with a lovely song about a serial killer. Shades of Sweeney Todd? What would inevitably be missing from the opening night sensation is his voice. Sensitive, not coy, gentle, never dishonest. Distant too, somehow, allowing his yarns to speak and touch without any unnecessary excessiveness.

Does perfectionism lead to rigidity? Will a series of half-baked stop-gaps really do? He's served us some souffles in the meantime. The pre-sales of 'All Delighted People' haven't been announced yet, are we expected to witness Noah's ark? The title track suggests so, in two versions of movie-schmaltz dramatics and banjo intro/electrospection. Elsewhere a melodic genius slacks off, bemused by his own whimsicality. The letting go of hard fixtures can reveal simpler revelations. Curiously, I'm reminded of Paul McCartney's first three post-Beatles records, an amorous stripping down of intellect and attentiveness for an emotional and physical truth. Or is that a veiled and mystified reality? There's a semi-religious enrapture of romantic love and also a kind of blithe cheekiness, as if to say I could do a whole lot more with these sketches but who's to defy intimacy? Stevens is clearly an enigma, even as a universalist, only Allison DuBois knows what will happen next, he could probably do anything or nothing. I think he's capable of something extraordinary.

PRINCE AND MIA

Picked-up Prince's latest album from my favorite rag in town. It's sexy, economical, neat and funky. Like Stevie W, he breathes with music. Even the filler makes you move. Don't go searching for the holy grail, your hips won't like it. In other news, super-good to hear the phenomenal, ghost riding 'Born Free' separated from it's silly video counterpart. Not reviewing Maya though, she's way overexposed.

WAVVES

There were no seats on the train, so he slumped down in the corridor, put on his shades, sat beside the bathroom and switched on his laptop. What was C J, trusted friend, writing about now? A smiling stranger took a toke on her fake cigarette. He knew that feeling. They were trapped in motion. He looked out of the window into the mysterious space between the cities. Rows of red roofed houses, secret lives left unknown. He remembered those horses on the beach, tripping over the sand and the tide overflowing. His arms had been bitten by insects. He started to read.

Ah, Wavves. He'd enjoyed that brat's blistering racket last year. Hyperactive, dreamily discordant songs that lodged themselves firmly inside your memory. There was a sweet insolence, so basic, it had to be true. A celebration of wasted and wasting time. A gum-chewing thesis on nothing much. 'King Of The Beach' hangs out in the rad life, with a side-order of self-doubt. Nathan Williams probably wrote these lyrics in 5 minutes, they are real narrow, we hear about how he's 'an idiot,' 'still feels stupid' and that 'my own friends hate my guts.' Business as usual. He also worships the sun, the ocean, the sand, the surf and the girl with a glazed casualness. The music's gotten cleaner, guitars crunch instead of smother, West Coast harmonies glisten like sea ghosts and there's some inviting, 80's synth textures wobbling and swirling in the mix. It's lighter, instantly attractive and he's so good with those honey-goo melodies and throwaway sentiments that the record is becoming happily addictive.

TETRO

The first breathtaking film of the year. Personal and outlandish. Ludicrous? Maybe. Pretentious? Perhaps. And what about courageously adventurous, charmingly offbeat and visually, wondrous.

ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER

I was going to complete a piece on 'Returnal' using the concept of a dialogue between a left channel speaker and a right channel speaker weighing up the merits of the music blasting out from their electrical pores. It started off as fun, got confusing and eventually gave me a headache. Too much ink. Now, sadly, I don't have the time to really examine this talented artist's latest work. I can say, a little blandly, that I like it quite a lot. There is a powerful tension at stake. Flickering, protruding splinters of noise holding back submersion into spiralling, hymnal harmony. Static in the cathedral. Disembodied echoes, traces unresolved. Over driven fractures, blue clusters on the mesmeric journey to the white-light zone. It's rather queasy, without an arc in sight, at once engaging and nauseous. I'm sure that the speakers would agree.

LAURIE ANDERSON

Laurie Anderson is spooky. She has a voice like no other. Droll, observant and detached, it spurns emotive expression. Her lyrics flirt with the sparse detail of haiku composition. Then there are the other voices. Electronic modulation wasn't her invention, Annette Peacock, for instance, plugged into an abrasive amp-throat chaos in the early 70s. But Anderson made it her own; warped narrative commentary and distracting aural semblances disturbing any conventional centrality. Her debut, 'Big Science,' still sounds striking and dead-on. Much of it has a bone-chilling clarity, seeming to pre-figure post-9/11 technological paranoia, delicate prophecies conceived with mantric precision and mathematical beauty. None of the albums she's made since have been quite so startling.

'Homeland' is co-produced by her hubby Lou Reed. She's had a profound influence on his work this century, as he's shunned songwriting to become a fully-fledged avant-garde experimenter. Anderson sticks to what she knows. Her calm, suggestive texts are backed up yet again by typical, art installation atmospherics. 'Only An Expert' deviates, it's an odd satire on our current cultural and political crisis set to some Ph.D. funkiness. But patience is rewarded in the pure, menacing brilliance of 'Another Day In America.' On this unsettling, darkly comic monologue, she affects the sort of treated, disfigured voice familiar from real crime television shows, in which the speaker's identity is deliberately masked and disguised. Broken poignancy creeped out by the inhumane. Here is an extract:

'There was an old married couple and they'd always hated each other. Never been able to stand the sight of each other, really. And when they were in their 90s they finally got divorced. And people said. 'Why did you wait so long, why didn't you do this a whole lot earlier?' And they said. 'Well, we wanted to wait until the children died.'

The lonely, morbid wisdom of everyday malice.

ARIEL PINK'S HAUNTED GRAFFITI

Lieutenant Columbo called upon Jessica Fletcher. 'Did you hear about the disappearance of Ariel Pink?' ' That's my case, don't get involved' she said. Cigars puffed, typewriters tapped.

'Worn Copy' was a muffled gem. Mr Pink recorded what seemed to be classic rock on the basest of matter. It was as if Todd Rundgren had dipped his master tapes into a sea of murk. The downgraded quality of the audio phonics held one at a distance from it's pop accessibility. A gas station radio pumping out meaningless pap through a gauze of grimed incomprehension. It inevitably went on too long, resembling a daft, manic kid showing off his latest magic trick. But still, what an idea, catchy tunes destroyed by pre-designed, wilful sludge. You felt like telling him to cut it out, joke's over, and that was, of course, entirely the point.

' I was a thinking 'bout hiring that Ariel Pink guy for the homecoming ball' Sue-Ellen Ewing told Alexis Carrington at the charity function. 'Damn you, he's mine' she replied. 'I've just signed him up for a million dollars.'

The re-runs. The Eighties have been soaked and saturated by a new generation. All that cheesed, banal 'liberation' butchered and left to hang out and dry by a stoned aesthetic. The hippies reincarnate, they were giggling at the woeful, selfish glitter, before deciding to reclaim it for themselves. Mr Pink was slightly ahead of the game, he watches it all, this knave of hearts, time to step forward, seek adoration, show them who's champ. Pass the Doritos, sip the Pepsi. 'Before Today' is a chance to reek in the hype. He stays true to himself, a taste of the tasteless, wedding party glitz with a glint of the bizarre. Another genre tomorrow, another revaluation, a cult artist continuing from where he took off. There is no great ambition on board to rock the boat, to marvel at musical expanse, the flatness is intentional and so is the gifted confusion-does he mean it? How is this meant to be accepted? Is he an outsider, the alien of paperback science-fiction decoding the irresistible shallowness of karaoke art? Or is he a smug, smart-ass for those in on the comedy? The layers of clouded interference on the 'merry-go-round' may have been erased, but the picture is no clearer. Perhaps, in some cases, a lack of artistic definition should be applauded.