BASIA BULAT. Try and remember that name because if she gets the same treatment as Jack Johnson, Katie Melua or any of the current crop of singer songwriters currently dabbling with the Top 40, she’ll be echoing through the speakers in your kitchen as you wash up dinner on Sunday listening to the radio and cursing the thought of Monday morning and the dull office job which beckons you ever closer.
Miss Bulat simply radiates beauty. Not just physical beauty, you understand, but that simple unrefined beauty that’s prevalent in music which makes you smile and feel that just for that one moment nothing else matters but the little ditty dancing around your head.
Oh, My Darling is chock full of whirling, jaunty melodies and folk-tinged melancholy, but its the often wistful lyrics, sung with hazy soul which both cleanse and break the heart.
The real strength of this album is Bulat’s voice. Compared recently to Elyse Weinberg, Bulat still has a unique style which both whispers and purrs. Imagine if Janis Joplin recorded an acoustic album shorn of the bluesy squeals and you’re halfway there.
Album opener, Before I Knew, is a sweet sounding piece, accompanied by mandolin and joyous hand clapping, but with a deceptively sombre lyric.
But before I knew it I was lost, before I knew I was a prisoner..”
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The title track is gentle acoustic stroll that at less than 90 seconds still manages to comprise a waltz and a Bob Dylan-esque harmonica. Elsewhere, The Pilgriming Vine features both a flute and a marching drum beat which works surprisingly well for such a bizarre concoction.
But its on the piano driven Snakes & Ladders and the tattered relationship which punctuates the Little Waltz that Bulat really shines. The former sits a little awkwardly in the track list as its slightly more frenetic pace, perhaps, contradicts the overall tone and tempo, but as one of the oldest songs in Bulat’s repertoire it deserves its place on the tracklist.
Its hard to find fault with the album as a whole. The production brings out the best in the overall sound and Bulat’s voice is incredible from start to finish. What really set this apart, though, is the strength of the lyrics. Honest, clever, never resorting to cliché and at times heartbreaking.
“Stay for a while - while our leaves are still green. Please, for me.”
Simply glorious.
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