You’d think ringing endorsements from Gilles Peterson and The Thievery Corporation (who did a remix of the track ‘Quicksand’ – the second single from this album) would somehow make null and void any decision yours truly could arrive it, but if enough people add their own twopenneth, pretty soon you’ll have lots and lots of pennies. Enough for something, gold perhaps, even enough for something platinum. And if the penny hasn’t dropped already, then let me make this patently clear; this is a lovely, lovely record – and far better than the penny metaphor suggests – but like the penny metaphor, it does have its limitations. Whilst tracks like ‘Urban Angel’ float on the same wispy, melodic folk cloud as Joni Mitchell’s ‘Both Sides Now’ or any number of songs by Beth Orton the soporific bloops and squeaks that support Walker’s near weightless vocal steer the record toward an infinite universe of torpor and indolence. And as every space cadet knows, floating around in zero gravity for too long, can lead to muscular atrophy and disorientation. ‘No One Else’ and ‘Faith’ have all the hypnotic appeal of something performed in microgravity – but like many tracks on the album there’s little to anchor them in the consciousness for any length of time. Better by far is the gentle, spectral gothic of tracks like ‘Circles’, ‘Right Here’ and ‘Sanckens Doll’ and the slack, weary trip-hop of ‘Quicksand’, ‘Red’, and ‘Colour Blind’ – allowing Natalie the privilege of coming across like a dreamy conflation of Kate Bush and that bonkers Regina Spektor missy.
Likely to appeal to fans of Carol King as much as fans of Imogen Heap but always travelling at its own pace and pursuing its own casual trajectory.