After a series of acclaimed singles, EPs and collaborations, the south London sweetly high-voiced singer-songwriter’s debut LP is fabulously sparkling, humorous, witty indie-dance-pop, packed with classy, clever tunes, touching moments of reflection, self-love and personal acceptance. After years of releases and struggles, working for example as a co-lead singer-songwriter of the band Pregoblin with Alex Sibley, and collaborating with the likes of Fat White Family, Gorillaz, The Horrors and more, in career context, the album title has a mix of the ironic and gently naive, but also certainly marks a new beginning. A sparkle in the eye and a sense of gentle mischief is constant in Winter’s songwriting and performance, and there’s always more to her than at first appears. So oodles of fun and finesse can be found from first to last in this excellent debut, from quirky opener Nirvana, which mixes a gentle sitar-flavoured riff into a dance frenzy and back again; the sprightly taut, catchy pop of L.O.V.E.; the crisply clubby and triangle ting of Feels Good (Tonight) and Aftersun; to perhaps the wonderful and true standout - the bouncy, catchy, theatrical piano pop of Big Star with romantic swoons, all dreaming big (“I’m gone red shoes on / DJ play my song /Got to live the dream but people keep on telling me / That I’ll dream my life away.”) Winter can do all kinds of styles, from the gentle acoustic I See The Robin to the rock-dance Sparks-like All I Ever Really Wanted; the ballad pop of Wannabe with its hilarious video nod to Edward Scissorhands, the melancholy yearnful piano number Just Like That; the dark thrum and subtle menace of shouty pop-punk Got Something Good, the mood-swinging acoustic number Only Lonely, and then the fabulously beautiful and poignant closer To Know Her, a gloriously uplifting chamber pop anthem to accepting yourself, wrapped up at the end in a mischievous bow - some wedding-feel church organ. With both a swish of the curtain and lots of sweaty underground ecstasy, a fantastically buoyant, theatrical, beautiful debut that’s finally arrived, and now contending to be one of the year’s best. Winter deserves to be just as that central track playfully dreams – a very Big Star indeed. Out on Lucky Number.
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