ESSIE JAIN
We Made This Ourselves
BAY62CD
The Leaf Label 2008
10 Tracks. 41mins03secs

While Essie Jain was born and raised in London, it is from New York, where she moved in 2001, that she operates. Music has been a part of her life from a very early age, learning classical piano, cello and, later, opera, but rejected it all at the end of her adolescence. It is only some years later, as she was going through a difficult time in her life, that she turned to music once again as a mean to express her emotions. After moving to New York, she spent some time collaborating with various musicians before meeting guitarist Patrick Glynn with whom she began working on her debut album. The result, We Made This Ourselves, was originally released on Brooklyn-based Ba Da Ding over a year ago, and is now given a new lease of life thanks to Leaf, just as her second album is due out in the US.

Although the folk brushes have brought comparisons to anything from Vashti Bunyan to Nick Drake, there is, throughout We Made This Ourselves, a strong reminiscence of This Mortal Coil’s third album, Blood, especially in the way melodies erupt in vocal harmonies. Continue Reading »