CD CHOICE: IDA MARIA,Fortress Round my Heart, Sony BMG, ****

As a child, Norwegian singer Ida Maria Sivertsen was diagnosed with synaesthesia - a condition that causes people to experience sensations together rather than separately. For example, music can be "seen" as a colour.

If Ida Maria's music could indeed be seen as a colour, it would be a big splash of day-glo New Wave. Coming across like Adele fronting The Strokes, this still young talent (23) is no respecter of conventional vocal technique, as she yelps and yells her way - in a thoroughly engaging manner - through her debut release.

With so many new female voices on the block, Ida Maria offers up a more direct approach to the r'n'b or retro-soul inflected stylings of her contemporaries.

The music is big and clever, with plenty of guitars clattering into each other and percussion being severely roughed up, but it's her voice that adds shape and substance to affairs. A bit lower than the normal register for someone of her age, there's something almost primal in her vocal approach, but it's the control she exercises over her phrasing which is most notable. Imagine a classically trained Iggy Pop with a different set of chromosomes and you get the picture.

Staying well away from the sometimes whiny concerns of a number of young female singer-songwriters, there's an immense sense of rock'n'roll fun to the songs here. In fact, it's almost a knees-up in terms of its giddy and direct appeal.

The single Oh My Godis a taut, angular affair that will have millions jumping up and down to it within weeks, while on I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked, she sounds like she's making a cameo appearance on an Undertones record. Ida Maria is an exciting and fun-filled new discovery. She is woman - hear her roar.

[ www.idamaria.co.ukOpens in new window ]

BRIAN BOYD

Download tracks: Oh My God, I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked