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We Made This Ourselves

Jain Essie

We Made This Ourselves

Label: Leaf

Genre: Rock / Pop

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  • CD Digi / Cardboard €8.99 Nice Price
    Out of Stock

Twenty-nine-year-old British-born Essie Jain makes her recorded debut with the glacial delights of 'We Made This Ourselves', an album whose quiet, powerful minimalism is undeniable. Born into a musical family, Essie grew up in London, where her childhood featured classical piano and cello instruction, as well as training in operatic singing. By the time she moved out of her teenage years, Essie had suspended her musical education. Recorded mostly in her apartment, the album is based around Jain’s piano and restrained, cool fire vocals with occasional discreet brushstrokes of brass, accordion, strings, guitar or hushed percussion. The record “ended up with an intimacy and a character that I don’t think we could have got any other way,” Jain considers. “I meant it to be a record for that ‘dark hour’ – when someone most needs a way to heal or cry, when walls close them in, to have quiet from the things that the world throws at a person. Looking back, there are moments where it can be almost uncomfortable, but that’s what I feel those times are about.” The effect is stately chamber-folk, delicate and painfully honest, seemingly detailing a wrought and failing relationship, and a disintegrating emotional self. The escalating tension in the strings amidst Jain’s celestial chorus of layered harmonies in ‘Sailor’ is quite engulfing. Jain’s exclamation in ‘Talking’ - “Shut up, shut up, shut up talking! / You gotta be kidding me” - has never been sung so exquisitely or so mournfully. While the album’s tone is marked by sombre understatement, avoiding all indulgence, the emotions are barely in check, always brimming close to the surface. The effect is spellbinding.