Album: Sophie Delila, Hooked (Blue Wrasse)

Already chosen for a collaboration by Plan B, great things are predicted for London-based French soul singer Sophie Delila.

It's easy to see why on this debut album made with Steve Booker, best known for Duffy's "Mercy". There are similarities with Corinne Bailey Rae in Delila's sophisticated, adult R&B, and she has an interesting vocal tic where her voice flicks up a quarter-tone, lending a blue edge to her delivery. "Hooked" and "Nature Of The Crime" deal with the classic soul theme of relationships as bad habits heading for disaster, and while "Spirit Of Love" is the kind of thing TV talent-show contestants might use to showcase their mundanity, Booker rings the changes efficiently enough elsewhere, with a gentle blue-beat arrangement on "Blue Sky", and castanets adding drama to "In The Morning".

DOWNLOAD THIS Nature Of The Crime; Can't Keep Loving You; Hooked