What looks like a cynical barrel-scraping exercise turns out to be nothing of the sort. This sprawling collection of home recordings, made by Drake and family before his career got properly under way, is as enjoyable as it is revealing. The influence of Drake's musical mum, Molly, on his melodic gift is particularly evident on Poor Mum - a wryly poignant song she wrote in response to his Poor Boy - while All My Trials, a duet touchingly performed by him and his sister Gabrielle, plants the thought that a form of homesickness may well have been the main trigger for the depression that overwhelmed this fragile son of privilege in his twenties. Though the folk and blues standards that make up most of this album inevitably sound lo-fi, the precision of the singing and, particularly, the guitar-playing suggest that Drake's talent was pretty well developed before he went up to Cambridge. In short, Family Tree is not just for the anoraks.
Island 1734041