Nolita (EMI)
Anyone who fell for Keren Ann’s American debut album, Not Going Anywhere, must have wondered why EMI UK didn’t release it; it’s not as though we are spoilt for masterful fusions of Françoise Hardy and the third Velvet Underground album. The only saving grace is that Nolita makes for a fantastic UK introduction, with its bolder take on the sultrier side of torch song and folk-blues.
On the surface, it’s all coffee and Gitanes, 3am solitude and Nick Drake albums on the stereo, but there are acres of nuance and depth, as you might expect from someone with a Russian-Israeli-Dutch-Javanese bloodline. Ann even manages to explore “absence, lust and longing” (her own description) without falling into cliché. Every time I play this record it reveals a new favourite. At the moment it is the luminous One Day Without, but it has been the exquisite L’Onde Amère, the strings-swathed title track, and Chelsea Burns, the dreamiest Velvets homage imaginable. Fans of Kathryn Williams, Hope Sandoval and Nico will lap this up, but on this form Ann trumps them all.
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Martin Aston