Laura Mvula: Sing To The Moon

Twelve months ago, Laura Mvula was a part-time receptionist at Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Today she is variously touted as a 21st century Nina Simone and heir to Portishead’s soulful innovations. It’s quite a billing. Nominated for both the BBC Sound Of… prize and the Brit’s Critics Choice award, there’s something surprisingly noncommercial about her music, which has a leisurely drift.

Her chief calling card is a cloud-scraping soul warble which, though superficially similar to Amy Winehouse’s, imbues what might otherwise feel like flighty trifles with depth and passion. However, she seems more interested in arrangements than songs, leading some critics to favourably compare her output to the off-the-wall studio pop the Beach Boys were cranking out in the mid-’60s. And while Sing To The Moon is far too glossy to be labeled eccentric it does, indeed, have its curlicues: ‘Like The Morning Dew’ starts as Bon Iver weirdo-folk, segueing into relatively straight-up soul-pop: the single ‘Green Garden’ tacks a retro-groove to a burbling melody that would not feel out of place on an Animal Collective record. An occasional delight, this is not the mainstream juggernaut we were promised.