Claire Martin - A Modern Art - Metro

As a multiple winner of prestigious ‘best vocalist' awards, you could hardly call Claire Martin an unknown quantity. Her 1992 debut, The Waiting Game, immediately established her pre-eminence among her peers but her new album shows the London diva isn't one to rest on her laurels. Packed with fresh and very contemporary-wounding arrangements, the significantly titled A Modern Art (Linn) reaches beyond the Great American Songbook to explore fresh songwriting territory. The album still contains a few jazz standards but it's the less obvious inclusions that really catch the ear, in particular Steely Dan's Things I Miss The Most: ‘The talk/The sex/Somebody to trust/The comfy Eames chair/The good copper pans,' runs the wryly melancholic lyric, beautifully delivered with trademark cool-school virtuosity by Martin. There's great work from rising piano star Gareth Williams, too.