After waiting almost an entire year for an American label to realize the beauty and stylized grace of British siren Martina Topley-Bird's fantastic 2003 debut Quixotic, Palm Pictures has released Anything, a reworked and rehauled version of Quixotic that truly rapes music fans and then robs them of a fantastic album. Topley-Bird, as you may or may not remember, was Tricky's muse for the trip hop classic Maxinquaye, plus she also lent vocals to the follow-ups, Nearly God and Pre-Millennium Tension. Topley-Bird's vocal style is very similar to other nymphets in the trip hop genre coming very close to a mix of Beth Gibbons formerly of Portishead and Louise Rhodes from the extremely under appreciated Lamb.

It's not that Anything is a "terrible" release, far from it. In fact, it's just that Anything is almost completely out of sequence from the original Quixotic album, and three tracks have been deleted. And it's not as if these tracks were filler, they were actually very good. The organ and trumpet sway of "Lying," the speedy guitar dealing of "I Wanna Be There," and the Tricky produced "Stevie's (Days Of A Gun)" are all missing in action. Also the jazzy intro that starts off the album is oddly positioned at the end of the album now, which is ridiculously disconcerting, because who needs a one minute and eleven second intro at the end of an album? And as a final insult, "Need One" which follows right on the heals of this jazzy prelude and causes the album to explode into life courtesy of Josh Homme and Mark Lanegan (Queens of the Stone Age - do these guys ever sleep?) now comes third, and feels very out of place now following a trip hop dancehall layering of Ragga.

Topley-Bird is definitely a vocal talent that deserves recognition in her own right, but considering the perfection of Quixotic it's reimagining in the form of Anything is any thing "but" the introduction we should be getting. If you don't have access to imports, then Anything is definitely the way to go. But if you want a fuller richer experience with this sure-fire talent, hunt down and shell out the extra money for Quixotic.