Whereas Norah Jones’ voice is the sound of half-light, dusky and seductive,former labelmate Rachel Loshak is a brighter, less original but nevertheless
charming addition to the gentle wave of acoustic based chamber-pop currently washing over the airwaves.
English-born, New York-based Loshak’s new album ‘Mint’ combines a sense of intimacy, with arrangements and production that pull it away from jazz toward a slightly more US college radio based sound, so that tracks such as ‘Rain’ ‘The Dreamer’ and ‘I Know I Could’ feel like they’re being sung by Jane Siberry’s sensible, older sister. The album shines thanks to these minimal but tasteful arrangements, although the lyrics veer from irresistible simplicity to resistible tweeness“Like a bud in the ground I feel excitement all around” for example isn’t exactly Cole Porter, although it does get better.
The album as a whole is a smooth, understated affair – ‘No Words’ for example,
is similar to Jones, but too innocently caught up in its own beauty to be a cynical rip off. It’s simply the sound of a lover singing to themselves in
another room somewhere. ‘When the Moon and the Sun’ is a twilight waltz lasting just two and a half minutes, while ‘Four-leaved Clover’ allows half-played electric guitar notes to disintegrate into Sound Effect, again
reasserting the mild indie influence of the production. However, this song is then followed by ‘All Day Long’ which feels like a country version of a Tanya Donnelly ballad (specifically ‘Stay’ by the way) and is a small, beautiful track.
‘Mint’ is a simple album, sincere and unostentatious – not a number one
maybe, but who cares? Probably not Rachel Loshak.