Free Love

“I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love”.

Wise words, Messrs Lennon and McCartney, but ones that the music industry has not been keen to heed over the years. So many iffy artists have been launched in a blaze of cash = success hype, that the alarm bells instantly start ringing at first sight of a more excessive than usual marketing campaign. All of which can spell bad news for a new artist like Peppercorn.

Born to Nigerian parents in the Sahara desert, she grew up in London before moving to New York – so how much of her debut album is smothered in a trans-Atlantic rock sheen is something of a mystery. Or maybe not. Clearly no-one in the recording process knew when to say “that’s enough”, layering each track with overdub after overdub.

Beneath all this is an obviously talented artist struggling to get out. Blessed with a spine-tingling voice, her songwriting too shows distinct signs of breaking away from the norm. She’s at her best on the title track, left alone with just a piano (oh, and an eighty-piece orchestra) and a lyric about political radicalism in the ’60s. The scratchy African chants on ‘Destiny’ and general attitude of songs like ‘Brutal’ and ‘Nice To You’ hint at a bright future, it’s just a shame that ‘Barefoot & Dirty Jeans’ sounds like Shania bloody Twain.

A little less budget next time around wouldn’t be a bad thing.