Today's idea - Beth Jeans Houghton at the Komedia

Back when all I could think about was music, Steve Malkmus knew that sound was keyed in, whether intellectually or rhythmically, to our ordinary everyday lives - the city is built with bricks and sound, the hum of cars and car radios, the clap of feet on pavement. "The gum smacks are the pulse I'll follow if my Walkman fades", he sang. There are only a few moments in an ordinary day when some kind of music isn't playing in my head. Increasingly, that music is composed by Newcastle's Beth Jeans Houghton.

Which is ironic, because Beth's weird, wonderful songs run counter to the notion that music, as embedded in our daily lives as it is, is an ordinary thing. Her songs - and Beth herself, if you take her interviews as evidence - inhabits a creative world which is winningly magical. It isn't the wistful, wide-eyed universe of a Bat For Lashes, but rather an arch, colourful terrain which seems to owe more to Cindy Sherman or Tony Hancock than it does Kate Bush.

Her musical palette - she is a young, female, folk singer - may seem familiar at first glance, but she has practically nothing in common with the likes of Laura Marling, Emmy The Great, Florence Welsh et al. First, her voice is more interesting - an effortless, husky hum which recalls 70s icon Bobbie Gentry, and her music is informed by deeper, darker, more esoteric strains of folk, country and progressive rock; by the likes of Tunng, Pentangle and Melanie.

Her imagination is, shall we say, vivid. Her press-pack makes for colourful reading - the biographical details are too long to print here in full, but here's a sample picked at random:

"Until one day, she was on a family holiday with her albino wolves in buttermere in the Lake District. During a dispute about the severe lack of chewing tobacco Beth left the yurt and went for a late night trot around the serene lake. not serene for long though.... She soon heard a splishing and a splashing in the darkest corner of the lake. She carefully began bare-footing along the waters edge to take a closer look at the commotion. As the sun rose golden over the nearest mountains, the waters began to swell and curdle, and three delightful heads appeared. Seeing three boys rise from the lake, Beth stared in disbelief as they emerged to show their glorious furry hind-quarters and scintillating hooves. 'Jesus on a bike' she cried as the half men, half goats trotted gleefully towards her".

You get the idea, I hope. Beth is playing the Komedia tonight with hotly rated folkies Stornoway, and her own 'Hooves of Destiny', of course. It really is an unmissable chance to see one of the most colourful, creative songwriters on these fair Isles. Highly highly recommended - if only for the inter-song banter, which is likely to be worth the entrance price alone (a tenner, since you asked).

TWISTED FOLK PRESENTS STORNOWAY AND BETH JEANS HOUGHTON
Komedia Brighton
10 Feb 2010 - 19:30, £10.