Angèle David-Guillou – And The Grass Was Singing
London-based French chanteuse gets grand piano, goes it alone.
THIS EXQUISITE TRACK, with its titular nod to Doris Lessing, is from Angèle David-Guillou’s first album under her own name, following two with her Klima project and stints adding beguiling vox to Glen Johnson’s shapeshifting chamber-poppers, Piano Magic. A quirky, near instrumental whirl around a grand piano with stately strings and shivering bells, it’s not until about 2 minutes 50 seconds that David-Guillou’s wordless vocals arrive in a brief flurry of clattering stick percussion to swell the waltz-time reverie to a short crescendo, before resuming the lovely piano melody. The dynamics throughout are striking (is it wrong to admire the proportions of a SoundCloud wave?) the composition subtle, intelligent. She plays the majority of the instruments herself and rocks the retro Euro-ingénue look like a young Isabella Rossellini with an autoharp. Impressive.
