Pop CD of the week:  BJÖRK, Volta, Polydor

It starts with a mighty clatter of glitchy beats and it just keeps getting better and better. If Björk's recent albums (Vespertine and Medulla) have been intimate yet celestial affairs, her seventh studio album is loud, pulsating, energetic and devilishly exciting. It's akin to finding Debut spinning around in a futuristic parallel universe.

While all Björk albums are adventures of one kind or another, Volta owes much of its exhilarating width and depth to the cast of accomplices which the Icelandic singer has gathered. For instance, the opening Earth Intruders, a track with a heart- stopping barrage of marching band stabs propelling it on and on, has Congolese street wildmen Konono No 1 and hip-hop producer Timbaland applying their touches.

Elsewhere, Antony Hegarty, electronic producer Mark Bell, Malian maestro Toumani Diabaté, Chinese pipa player Min Xiao-Fen, an Icelandic brass section and drummers Brian Chippendale and Chris Corsano all have important parts to play.

Still, this is a Björk album, and it's her ability to boss these collaborators into her way of thinking that makes Volta such a heavyweight monster. You can glimpse her imagination at work throughout, trying out new ideas here or bending sonic trademarks there, such as on the gorgeous Hope, where Diabaté's poignant kora and a rake of tablas act as

an unlikely but marvellously free-spirited counter-weight for her voice. For every techy wig-out (the Mark Bell-assisted Declare Independence, and the wild, tribal reaches Timbaland takes her to on electro masterpiece Innocence), there are drop-dead charmers like her duets with Antony on Dull Flame and My Juvenile to marvel at. Both voices seem perfectly matched as they soar away to the heavens, alien soulmates seeking a little tranquility. Volta sets a new kind of standard. www.bjork.com