When Solveig Slettahjell first emerged on the Norwegian scene in 2001 with her Slow Motion Orchestra (with her long-time pianist Qvenild on piano and electric piano) she seemed too good to be true. Her debut album Solveig Slettahjell (Curling Legs) from 2001 was impressive, but Silver (Curling Legs) from 2004, now seems, with the benefit that hindsight affords, the finest jazz vocal album in the last 25 years. But if Silver was a great album, seeing her perform it live was something else. Here was a singer with a voice so pure, intonation so perfect, diction so clear, yet able to wring emotion out of a lyric with the subtlest nuance of voice or a raise of an eyebrow and a stage presence that commanded attention. Equally important was her ability to contextualise the songs within her own personal musical universe. For a start, she sung songs remarkably slowly (hence the Slow Motion Orchestra), so short notes became long notes and long notes became even longer (something instrumentalists, never mind singers, find difficult to master) and she deconstructed the background using musicians adept in the avant garde field, so framing her voice with surreal, otherworldly accompaniment (a masterstroke) that infused new life into familiar songs by bringing them into the 21st century. But of course, a singer of 26 could not continue singing Silver for the rest of her life, but subsequent albums seemed to progressively distance her from this stunning album. Pixiedust qualified as one of the worst titles for a jazz album ever, with coverart to tempt inclusion in Jazzwise's monthly Art Failure feature while albums of so-so originals (Domestic Songs, Good Rain, Tapan Sessions) and a festival commission for Vossa Jazz seemed to reverse the process whereby a promising artist begins with an average album and steadily progresses towards artistic maturity and the kind of acclaim predicted for them at the outset. But now we have Antologie that finally acknowledges her real strength is that of an interpreter of other people's songs. Here, with a seemingly disparate bunch of material from the likes of the Rolling Stones, ABBA, Paul McCartney, Cyndi Lauper, Radiohead et al, she craftily re-imagines them and reconfigures them in a way that seem to make them her own in a way that, paradoxically, she is unable to do with her originals. Morten Qvenild, like the fine pianist he is, is faultless. Her version of Tom Waits' ‘Take It With Me’ (that originally appeared on Silver) somehow seems to say, look out, I may have been away, but now I'm back. Welcome home.