Album review: Molly Drake, Molly Drake *Bryter Music)

Andy Gill
Friday 18 January 2013 20:00 GMT
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When a recording of Molly Drake singing her composition "Poor Mum" was made public a few years ago, it was immediately evident from where much of her son Nick's talent, not to mention his intonation and fragile worldview, had derived.

This beautifully packaged collection of 19 of Molly's home recordings confirms this notion. Set to simple piano arrangements, and sung in a gentle breathy caress, they employ avian and pastoral imagery to evoke mild frustration and yearning with an air of wistful melancholy: sound like anyone you know? And despite her amateur standing – she never once supposed these tapes would be made public – there's a keen poetic sensibility at work in lines like "I remember we, but you remember you and me".

Download: Happiness; I Remember; Poor Mum

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