SINGER-SONGWRITERS no longer arrive quietly and spend a while working out who they are.
Instead they are thrust upon us, supposedly fully formed, and often riding a wave of excitable hopes and hype.
Rae Morris is just one of the latest.
At 22, she possesses great confidence and a way with a meticulously crafted song, and she combines two moods you don’t expect to find together: gloom and uplift.
At first the effect is pleasing, as on opener Skin, Closer and the love-shot musings of This Time.
Produced by Ariel Rechtshaid, the songs are wrapped in a rolling mist of electronics, or boosted beyond their natural place by a sound too big for what they convey.
Comparisons have been made with Ellie Goulding, which may or may not help, and Bat For Lashes too. In the end, what starts out interesting is drowned in studio trickery.
The slick sheen of production encumbers rather than enhances, and that’s a shame.
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