Eleanor McEvoy - Stuff

Prolific and tireless, Eleanor McEvoy has been knocking out quality albums over the last 25 years. Stuff gathers 11 hard-to-find tracks, mostly previously available in various incarnations, including single mixes, collaborations with other artists, along with a couple of new recordings. It makes for a surprisingly cohesive collection, with a loose thematic link, concerning love (won and lost) and dislocation.

The sultry, soulful ‘Don’t Blame The Tune’ calls to mind ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’ and ‘Dark End of The Street’ while McEvoy demonstrates her pop smarts on The Fratellis’ ‘Whistle For The Choir’. ‘Please Heart You’re Killing Me’, written with Texas legend Rodney Crowell, is meaty, up-tempo country-rock with a Latin jazz flavour and her reading of Chuck Berry classic ‘Memphis Tennessee’ showcases a willingness to stray from the comfort zone. Of the new recordings, ‘Milord’, sung here in French, will be familiar to Edith Piaf fans while ‘Take You Home’ recorded with just echo-laden guitar bubbles with hope and lust. Elsewhere, a collaboration with Polish a cappella group Banana Boat yields the atmospheric, harmony-laden ’Take A Little Look’. ‘Lover’s Chapel’, a country-pop tune written with the Beautiful South’s Dave Rotheray and performed with Homespun, rounds off this eminently enjoyable release.