Beautiful, intricate, understated, poetic and intelligent, this warm, inviting experimental folk by the Dutch-British singer-songwriter is the first LP under her own name, having previously released three as the artist Someone. A gorgeous release full of subtlety, intimacy as well as infectious melodies, at times similar to the sound and feel of the wonderful This Is The Kit, especially on the fabulous brass and syncopated single Fear Bangs The Drum (“Can you hold the thought up to the light? / Could you catch the phrase and harmonise? / Fear bangs the drum / Let it thrum, let it thrum.” There is also something of hushed intimacy of Villagers as well as early 90s Goldfrapp on the metaphorical, exquisite The Bricks That Make The Building (“The bricks that make the building / And the earth that feeds the garden / The breath that helps the child sing.”) But Jackson’s style and voice is very much distinctly her own, finger-picked guitar at the core of her sound, but with a perfect ear for added instrumentation, from brass to orchestral strings and harp. Opener The Lighthouse unfurls slowly and beautifull, while Built To Collide drives forward more with pacy, uplifting indie folk. Personal, poetic, emotional and philosophical, it’s an album filled with precious musical and lyrical gems, including also the more stripped back acoustic guitar Grace Notes, the piano-led Wild Geese, and finally The Prizefighter. As Jackson herself puts it: “Written in a family home in France next to a brilliantly spooky graveyard, this is as much an album about death as it is joyfully about life. It allowed me the space and the courage to dig into my feelings about womanhood, growing older, expectations and preconceptions laid on us by society and, of course, mortality.” Superb. Out on Tiny Tiger.
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