Album: Guy Chambers & Sophie Hunter, Songs for a Boy (Sleeper Sounds)

Currently revealing the secrets of his success on a fascinating BBC2 series about songwriting, Guy Chambers here ventures beyond his mainstream pop comfort-zone on a four-track EP made with breathy chanteuse Sophie Hunter, with whom he previously worked on a French-language album, she playing the Jane Birkin to his Serge Gainsbourg.

Here, the palette is broadened to encompass spookier, more atmospheric material. On "Epitaph", the ethereal organ is like the creaking of a haunted house, the strings as evanescent as dust blowing down its hallway, and "House of Wood" is a pastoral reverie akin to Bat for Lashes. Meanwhile, Chambers's production nous is perhaps best represented by "The Angels Sing", where the droney violin and electric piano are kept subtly in check by the understated martial drumbeat.

DOWNLOAD THIS Epitaph; House of Wood; The Angels Sing