As winter draws near it's a different story. Unappealing icy streets and frost upon my window can keep me in slumbers until the mid-afternoon. Not laying in apathetic idleness but actually in a prolonged deep sleep, as if my metabolism is in practice for a later-in-life routine of annual hibernation.

On a dismal October morning I awoke at 11am and, becoming increasingly aware of the damp and overcast nature of the days weather, I pondered on my task for the day: The Interviewing of Cynthia Scott.

Who?

Born and raised in the northern part of the United States, her musical perceptions were ignited by West Side Story which left the young thing "profoundly affected". Later, much time was spent singing and dancing to Beatle records (this being the era of the British Beat Invasion) in the private confines of her parents' basement.

After enrolling in college her non-academic life was divided between skiing and vocalising with an assortment of "very hard rock bands".

She graduated in sculpture through Rhode Island School Of Design, on the way spending a short spell in a country rock group alongside fellow-student and soon-to-be Talking Head, Chris Frantz.

"As part of my college course I had to spend a year living abroad. That's why I first came to England. I found it so much better on a day-to-day political level than the States.

"In America there is absolutely no community spirit whatsoever, everyone for themselves is just the accepted way. People here aren't so obvious about their wealth and the National Health Service, whew! My parents were deeply upset when I moved here, they understood it was better for my career but they really believe in the American Way and they can't accept the fact that I prefer it politically here."

Cynthia Scott has now been resident within UK shores for five years. These days she can be witnessed around town as part of Seven Minute Set, a small gathering of young women terrorising gig-goers with their sprightly brand of anarchistic a ccapella (sorry, I can't muster any better description). She also periodically exercises her throat with a jazz band and, most notably perhaps, she has a single called 'The X-Boy'.

This capturing of her wailings onto wax comes courtesy of the Compact Organisation. It's a connection which was arrived at in typically (for both parties) bizarre and accidental fashion:

"I had a gig at the Polytechnic Of Central London and as gigs are hard to get I couldn't turn it down, even when the organisers told me at very short notice that they couldn't get a piano.

"I got the whole of my backing onto tape but felt I couldn't just stand there and sing with a tape recorder. So, I worked out a dance routine. I didn't have time to rehearse it properly but under the Poly there was a big car park. On the night of the gig I went down there with the tape recorder and practised the routine.

"I was jigging about down there until the attendant came over and said that the car park lights were on a time switch and the place was about to be plunged into darkness. Darkness isn't much, use for practising a dance routine.

"Anyway, a person who saw me down there got my name and address and passed it on to Tot Taylor (Compact supremo and author of 'The X-Boy'). He had been looking for a girl singer for a particular project of his but couldn't find the right one.

"Originally he planned to do an EP with Mari Wilson, Virna Lindt, Carmel, who he was working with then, and me'. 'The 'X-Boy' was recorded last Easter and eventually appeared on the 'Young Person's Guide To Compact' album."

As a single 'The X-Boy' is cute and catchy but riot particularly stunning. Rather like just another tune taken from the Compact cupboard labelled 'America As Seen Through Assorted 50's Flicks And Hollywood Musicals'.

"Hmm" (hums Cynthia tunefully), "that's interesting. There actually isn't a great deal of me in 'The X-Boy'. I prefer the B-side, it's got more substance."

Agreed! 'Dance With Me' (only to be found on the backside of twelve-inch incarnations) features much improved singing carrying a resounding ring of personality, lifting the number from its kitsch foundation. Less mannered, more stylish.

"The choice of A-side was up to Compact, after all it was their idea and their money and they did all the work. I must admit I don't rhapsodise about 'The X-Boy' and a lot of people in the music business who have heard it can't understand why it's a single at all."

Ms Scott currently earns a daily crust as a waitress: "I'm not like most musicians who sign on the dole until they make it. I have to work as a waitress or a secretary."

Her first job post-college involved performing secretVerdana chores for a firm of solicitors – it transpired that they were on the payroll of the mafia and her desk was equipped with a shooter.

"But it saps the creativity, it's not part of me. Anyone who gets anywhere really deserves it, good luck to them."

As if to emphasise this last remark her face beamed out a vigorous radiance when a Compact rep informed us of the new and improved Mari Wilson chart placing.

Listening to 'The X-Boy' mindful of the lady's day-job, a mental picture is evoked of her wriggling down a narrow aisle between tables in a packed-to the-gills eating house, a trayful of steaming fodder balanced precariously on her outstretched fingertips.

Suddenly the plates of food are tossed into the air as she breaks into song and leaps to the table tops, executing an elaborate piece of choreography across the cutlery. Astonished diners look on, mouths agape.

Unfortunately, real-life live showings of 'The X-Boy' seem unlikely: "There just isn't the money around for Compact to hire the musicians and get venues arranged. I certainly wouldn't want to work with a regular band. I got fed up with all the hassles, being too tired to rehearse after working all day and then missing the last tube home, although I do like the ideas that can bounce back and forth with other musicians.

"The jazz band are not into rehearsing at all, just improvising, which makes it rather tough on the singer!

"The Seven Minute Set thing is good because it is a loose arrangement. We don't rehearse, we get togther before a gig and decide what we're going to do. It's better working that way and it's good that it is all women.

"Not that I'm a raving feminist or separatist but there is a different kind of energy that comes over."

Although she's wielded her own composing pen in the past, Cynthia's conception of her future repertoire is uncommonly altruistic:

"I'd like to perform songs by other people. Not cover versions of songs that are already known but songs by undiscovered writers. Joy, who's in Seven Minute Set, writes some beautiful things and there must be so many people like that.

"I'd like to get to the point where I could place an ad for unknown writers then sit back and await the huge avalanche of cassettes. I want to perform songs that I feel something for and have some affinity with.

"And different styles of music too. I've always been into all kinds of music, from West Side Story to the Beatles and through to jazz. I just see it all as music and not fitting into different categories. I certainly wouldn't want to do a set full of 'X-Boys'."

Hmm (my harmony to Cynthia's earlier one). Point taken. It is difficult to envisage someone of Cynthia Scott's diverse musical endeavours and, er, intelligence (I hesitate because words like that have a tendency to burn through the pages of pop papers) being easily moulded into some masterplan conceived within the inner sanctum of Compact House.

She doesn't have the mystery of Virna Lindt or the beehive of Mari Wilson (although she does have an astonishing pair of spectacles – the battered rims of which give the impression that the owner was actually born with the things perched on the bridge of her nose – they are very much a part of her) and 'The X-Boy' is a mere snippet, a singular example of her varied talents.

She also possesses an almost alarming eagerness (there's a promo pic going around showing her almighty yet hypnotic wink – it should be banned!) An innate energy and enthusiasm which manifests itself in a voracious appetite for excited conversation about anything. Even...

"Hey! There's a new version of glandular fever going around (at first I thought she meant a record), "it makes you really sleepy. . . I've got it!"

She infects me too. With a buzz of liveliness prompting me to dash home, write this and continue work on my numerous Great Unfinished Features, as well as with the bad germs that eventually reduce me to an inert, snoring mass.

And that, friends, is where we came in.