Review

New York-based Londoner Essie Jain’s second album The Inbetween is a deceptively diverse, haunting and full-blooded record. Flourishes of strings and brass gracefully embrace the piano-led compositions and everything is presided over by Jain’s spookily seductive voice; a voice as thick and sweet as honey. Off-kilter arrangements and avant-garde trimmings create a Weimar-esque cabaret atmosphere on tracks such as the theatrical ‘The Rights’, a Gothic waltz of a song that hangs heavy with decadence and grandeur, licked at by a playfully morose clarinet. Sleepy French horns shine over the unfolding heartache of ‘Please’ and gentle folk ruminations become apparent behind the mournful and heart-melting ‘You’. The blues-tinged and smoky ‘Stop’ is another alluring highlight. This record is hypnotic in its melancholic beauty and it richly rewards the ears with each subsequent listen. James Gracey

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

DOWNLOAD: ‘WEIGHT OFF ME’, ‘EAVESDROP’, ‘GOODBYE’, ‘I REMEMBER IT JUST LIKE THIS’.
FOR FANS OF: ST. VINCENT, DRESDEN DOLLS.

Posted on: December 2, 2008