Far

What's a girl to do? How do you get yourself noticed when Tori Amos, Feist, Liz Phair, Cat Power, Amanda Palmer and seemingly every second 20-something from New York has long plied your quirky-chick-with-a-piano shtick.

Making dolphin noises might just do the trick: at one point during the twee, bouncing 'Folding Chair' Regina Spektor unashamedly dives headlong into a Flipper imitation. But the Moscow-born, NYC-raised eccentric — not opposed to taking drum sticks to her piano during live shows — knows that grabbing attention isn't as important as keeping it. So on her third album, 'Far', she tempers her strange impulses with the pop smarts of four A-list producers.

Mike Elizondo, who reigned in similarly strange Fiona Apple on 'Extraordinary Machine', ensures Spektor sounds delirious but not demented as she sings "we made an old computer out of macaroni pieces" on happy-go-lucky 'The Calculation'; emphasises the innate beauty of the piano melody on the fluid 'Eet'; humanises her cyborg recreation on the clattering 'Machine'; and ensures 'Man Of A Thousand Faces' is all striking simplicity.

Strokes producer and repeat collaborator David Kahne keeps it predictably basic — voice, piano, drums — on the stirring 'Human Of The Year' and shiny 'One More Time With Feeling', while Garret "Jacknife" Lee brings the stadium-sized subtlety so deftly displayed on Snow Patrol ballads. The sinewy 'Laughing With' bolsters a confident vocal performance with little more than traces of violin, viola and cello although Lee does get more hands on with the poppy bounce 'Two Birds' — all jaunty piano and blasting tuba — before pulling out all the stops on the skipping 'Dance Anthem Of The '80s': the party tuba's back, now joined by an R&B groove, airy keyboards, beatboxing and warbling, whimsical vocals about wandering through city streets "like a drunk, but not".

In comparison, everything-and-the-kitchen-sink producer/ ELO mastermind Jeff Lynne makes her sound positively restrained. On 'Genius Next Door' she's the soloist in the spotlight on the local conservatory stage, as the choir and orchestra play from the shadows; a meditation on lost and found and 'Wallet' could pass for classic Elton John (if his lyricist Bernie Taupin were a kook). But the faltering 'Blue Lips' briefly blossoms into lush '70s Technicolor and, well, the fizzy 'Folding Chair' has those dolphin noises.

If nothing else they'll give Regina Spektor the attention she deserves.

Bitch and Famous Will Harry Potter go nude? And Trixy wonders how Amor didn't see Joost's infidelity coming…

A Christmas Carol This festive staple gets trotted out every year, but you've never seen a version like this one.

Caught on tape What do Joost van der Westhuizen, Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson all have in common?