Album Review: Alessi's Ark - The Still Life
- Written by Charlotte Stones
However much we listen to folk-pop, waiting for hidden messages to materialise, anticipating a track that screams with meaning that drags you into self-reflection, there never seems to be one. We listen intently, in hope even, but mostly it remains prosaic; a lost sound that only returns through blasting headphones as a night-time escape from neighbourly noise.
As it happens, Alessi’s Ark’s The Still Life rejects this claim with weariness and sorrow. There’s less focus on stillness than you’d imagine, and even less on that indelible bowl of dusty fruit, waiting to be the subject of the uninspired artist. The third studio album from West London singer-songwriter Alessi Laurent-Marke is more than the cool accompaniment for deep introspection in a classy wine bar that first comes to mind.
Despite leaving Virgin in 2010 for independent label Bella Union, Alessi’s Ark’s loving folk-pop has continued, though The Still Life is far from the pretentious tweed-clad banjoists of what pop-folk has become. It picks up exactly where her 2011 album Time Travel left off, with girlish vocals sweetening a grown-up longing for lost love; short tracks come and go timidly.
The contemplative ‘The Rain’ dampens any leftover spirit from ‘Veins Are Blue’; folk’s recall of girl power as Laurent-Marke yearns: “you can’t hold me down anymore”. The Still Life grows up with its contemporary sound effects. The haunting accompaniments of ‘Big Dipper’ provide an unsettling album highlight; Alessi’s Ark is not just another folk-wonder, making music on the back of vocal reminiscence and the strings of a guitar.
Perhaps we’re yet to reach the stage of vocal recognition. The Still Life is as beautifully artistic as its title suggests, yet there is little way of knowing this is Alessi’s Ark we’re listening to; little surprise and not much in the way of broken ground. Given (her) musical journey so far, The Still Life provides a clear indication of musical talent waiting to be developed.
The Still Life if out now and available from amazon 