A favourite of mine from the past decade, For Lovers, Dreamers & Me was bafflingly ignored upon its release in 2006, and went virtually unmentioned in the swathes of 'Decade Round-Ups' which I binged on for a couple weeks over New Year.
When it was released, it suffered from the same sort of pigeonholing which plagued Van Hunt's debut two years earlier. Ostensibly labelled 'neo-soul' (unfortunately a function of her skin tone), it's really a much more varied and interesting record, with grooves cooked up from influences of acoustic, pop, jazz, Beatlesque rock and country, as well as straightahead soul music.
The range of stylistic choices are matched by an equally-eclectic voice. Alice Smith is a genuinely fantastic vocalist, with expressiveness and emotion comfortably-conveyed through four fierce octaves. She excels as much in softer, mellower moments as she does in bombastic sequences of power and energy, and can oscillate along that spectrum with ease and flair. As striking as her technical proficiency is, her gifts aren't milked or overindulged, with the songs remaining central. She draws on jazz, blues, rock, pop, gospel and soul traditions, all of it forming her natural musical palette, one transcending contrived genre-fusion. Delightful music, which unfortunately remains her only release to date:
01. Dream
02. Woodstock
03. Gary Song
04. New Religion
05. Do I
06. Fake Is The New Real
07. Desert Song
08. Know That I...
09. Secrets
10. Love Endeavour
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