Bristolian trip-hop may be somewhat far off the Zeitgeist but new Virgin signings Ilya manage to fuse the sound of their coven with both a timeless London cool and classic arthouse charm.
Vocalist Joanna Swan sounds like a budding Nina Simone, accenting the album’s smoky jazz-bar atmosphere. ‘Bellissimo’ is a wonderful track bursting with Gallic wonderment, fusing the majestic mastery of the old-world troubadours – Jacques Brel, Scott Walker, Lee Hazelwood, Serge Gainsbourg. That said, their quiet beauty is also innovative à la Goldfrapp and Four Tet – ‘Quattra Neon’ for instance sounds like space-age Shirley Bassey, no bad thing.
But there’s another, slightly more potent influence: writer Nick Pullin and producer Dan Brown seem quite taken with the overblown yet elegant romantic tendencies of the likes of Tindersticks, Nick Cave and Cousteau. The overall effect is a journey into lush filmic and orchestral landscapes, the fruits of which will no doubt appear on some hyper-expensive car commercial (in fact Ilya may already be familiar to some as the music on the Cacharel adverts).
They Died For Beauty is an exquisite surprise.