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Julia Biel

Not Alone

Rokit Records RKT 010

The first singer with whom Julia Biel is compared in her press release accompanying this, her debut, self-produced album, is Bjork, and the Icelandic singer's trademark mix of stridency and melancholy does indeed permeate Not Alone.

More rooted in jazz than Bjork, though, the album, with its self-communing intimacy and discreet accompaniment from the likes of guitarist Jonny Philips, cellist Ben Davis, flautist Idris Rahman, bassist Jasper Hoiby and drummer Seb Rochford, should appeal to the growing constituency that regards material by the likes of Nick Drake, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell et al. as suitable for jazz intepretation alongside the Gershwins, Porters and Kerns of this world.

That said, this is a fine, original album, packed with apparently simple tunes that reveal more affecting depths with successive playings, Biel's voice is a highly expressive instrument, capable of moving unaffectedly between dreamy languor and controlled power, and her songs are at once deeply personal and immediately appealing.