This has been out for a while but that's not going to stop me from talking about it. I feel kind of hypnotized by this album. I keep coming back to it, and if you've heard it yourself, it won't be hard to understand why. It's gorgeous. Effortlessly so. Lianne La Havas's self-titled album has the quality of a naturally forming oasis. Appearing first as an illusion on the horizon- it becomes more real and rejuvenating the closer you get and the more time you spend with it. It takes a lot of effort to sound this good. But you have to have the raw talent for it to be worth the exertion. You can't build something this sturdy out of spit and string from a vision board, and Lianne doesn't need to try. She is working with only the finest of materials here- her voice, her intangible knack for poetry, and a graceful sense of melody. "Read My Mind" has a delicate inevitability to it, a fateful dream plucked out on the strings of the heart. Later, "Seven Times" introduces Brazilian guitars to create a cleansing mix of prayer and patience, and "Soul Flower" builds and bursts through cycles of affirmation and refraction, making space for recuperation and healing in furrows of rich and delicate grooves and percussion that shares the quality of applause. I'm becoming chuffed just recalling its effect on me. Excuse me while I lay on the flow and just let it flow over me... for like, the twentieth time in the past year.
You can get a copy of Lianne La Havas album from Nonsuch here.
