Bristolian song-smith Jimmy Galvin gets by with a little help from his friends.

System Vertigo is one man, Jimmy Galvin, and a number of people who are willing to do him favours. Living in Bristol and having a "kind of Scott Walker reputation", these people include three members of Portishead and Reprazent's rhythm section. Bristol, Jimmy says, is a place of individuals. That's what makes his contemporaries like Massive Attack so distinctive.

Galvin is also an individual: a singer/songwriter/producer who even arranges his own Stravinsky-infused strings. "I studied painting at art college," he explains in his intense Somerset tones. "One night I was made to watch Top Of The Pops and I thought, jeez, this is like being force-fed cold baked beans. I decided it was about time that somebody picked up the mantel and started trying to do something from the heart again."

Jimmy speaks very quickly, he has a lot on his mind and much of what he says could, from someone else's mouth, seem pretentious. Jimmy, however, means it and often finishes sentences with an awkward laugh as if embarrassed by how vehemently he's just expressed his views. "Music's got a vocabulary, and most people just seem to be using a few words," he reckons, "I'm trying to say we have a whole dictionary we can use."

So is there pressure because he's closely identified with the Bristol scene? "I need to make my own mark and do something different. I'm a singer/songwriter but I'm trying to make it sound like the 21st century."

The album also includes contributions from Ruby Turner and Roxy Music's Andy Mackay playing oboe. It's the use of these unusual instruments, which gives the album its individuality, that Galvin is so keen to impress us with. Much of it is very classical in its arrangement, and it's very soulful. Jimmy likens it to What's Going On by Marvin Gaye - a sad album, but beautiful. In production terms it sounds a bit like Moby, if he came from the West Country. Sometimes it treads the same ground too often but you have to admire its ambition.

Being the auteur that he is, Galvin is releasing Suburbia Kills on his own Silent Poetry Records. He's a workaholic and describes music as all he does. As well as recently composing two film scores he's already begun recording his next album. "This one will be more upbeat," he says. "Since I've started using public transport I've been feeling much better about the world." God, things must have been bad. MW 11 July 02

Suburbia Kills, released 15 July 02 on Silent Poetry Records.