Echoes and dust

Beccy mailed us a few weeks back and asked if we’d be interested in reviewing her new CD, of course being the obsessive pursuers of new music that we are we said ’yes’ and the CD duly turned up a few days later.

Often in this situation what turns up is a battered CDR of grainy MP3s with a handscrawled track list, so when I opened the envelope to discover a nicely packaged ‘proper’ CD I thought things were looking up. This still didn’t prepare me for what happened when I put the CD in the player!

The voice! Oh My God. The voice!

Like smoked honey on silk. Like warm rain. Like chocolate. I know I’m getting carried away here, but it’s so rare that one in our little neck of the woods comes across an artist so perfectly formed yet almost unknown beyond her own environs. I mean this seriously, handled and promoted right this could be one to sit comfortably alongside the Adele’s and Duffy’s of this world, she’s that good, especially given the current shift towards the Alt.Folk style that’s around at the moment.

That’s not to say that this is a Folk or even an Alt.Folk record, it’s less easily pigeonholed than that, elements of Jazz, Pop and even Electronica are all on show, but folk roots certainly shoot through many of the songs on here combining with a sense of melody and a songcraft that could easily lend itself to the mainstream but without any sense of compromise.

There are some obvious reference points, Tori Amos for a kick off, although Owen’s voice is deeper, richer and dare I say it (baring in mind that Ms Amos is an all time hero for me) stronger? Sia and Juliana Hatfield also spring to mind here.

But as good as the voice is, it’s the songs that really carry the album. Only 30, Beccy’s songs carry an emotional charge that some artists twice her age struggle to find. Tracks like ‘The Deeps’, ‘Blizzard’ and the stunning ‘When I Dock’ are beautiful, moving and raised hairs on the back of my neck. It’s ‘Stalemate’ though that produces one of the albums finest moments, Owen’s voice combining with a male counterpart over a brooding, dark beat and bass combination that is startling.

Of course, she hasn’t really come out of nowhere. Like all overnight sensations, there’s really years of hard graft behind her, she’s released two previous albums on her own Fairy Snuff label and worked with the likes of Elvis Costello and Kate Rusby in the past.

Look out for this one. It’s a bit special. It’s one of those that a well timed appearance on something like Later with Jools Holland or other such break could easily catapult Beccy Owens right in to the front rank of our homegrown talents.

Top Tracks: 'When I Dock', ‘Blizzard’, 'Stalemate'.

Available from www.beccyowen.com