Angie Hart's little-girl voice is startlingly fresh with subversive beauty. Fresher still is the way this Aussie foursome's lean folk-art arrangements (spare piano, acoustic guitar) propel snappy rhythms and jazzy melodies. Off-kilter pop, their songs boast a dry poetic suggestiveness (think Suzanne Vega or Nick Drake) – they come across like knowing nursery rhymes for sexy, wised-up children. Fourteen gemlike tunes, Marvin is a superb first album – "Labour of Love," a classic single about the ambiguity of desire (catchy, too); "Ordinary Angels," an emancipatory life lesson ("Don't be smart, be a beginner"); "Most Beautiful," a bent bossa nova. And Hart's a real find, whether belting like a Swinging London dolly bird ("No Time") or straight-talking smoothly ("Girl"). (RS 685)

PAUL EVANS