Afterglow

Although One Dove's debut album Morning White Dove was only released in 1993, it seems like a lifetime ago that Dot Allison's sultry voice last graced a record with its Dusty Springfield-esque charm.

The lengthy hiatus was down to record company wrangles and the inevitable band split (not to mention a car accident that left her in a wheelchair for four months). Now, armed with ten new songs, all at least co-written or co-produced by herself, Dot's ready to re-convene her affairs with a public whose capacity to embrace an album from a dance artist has thankfully increased greatly since Morning White Dove was so cruelly overlooked.

Afterglow opens with the enchanting 'Colour Me', a track that sums up much of the album's retro-futuristic charm with its marriage of sleazy slo-mo beats and Phil Spector production sensibilities. Similar wonders are worked on 'Close Your Eyes' (like Howie B meets Velvet Underground) and 'Morning Sun' (where sitars sit on smoky lo-fi rhythms), but the album's most memorable moments are when Dot's bittersweet lyrics and ethereal vocals come to the fore, as with the haunting melancholia of 'I Wanna Feel The Chill' or the anthemic brilliance of 'Mo' Pop'.

Here's hoping such fragile and beautiful music will be more than just a soundtrack for the post-clubbing generation. And that it's not another six years before the next album comes our way.