Pixx

4AD

It’s always a joy to hear something small, perfectly formed – particularly when it’s this fresh. The This is Pixx’s Fall In EP. She’s 19, newly signed to 4AD and in the opening, title track she appears to have made the perfect merger of Everything But The Girl and The Cocteau Twins with a vocal reminiscent of Tracey Thorn’s particular brand of restraint and an intriguing curl of guitar that Robin Guthrie might have made. But, and here’s the important part, she’s not only made the merger she sells it as a sound all her own.

Reverb-drenched vocals, unfurling guitar and programmed rhythms – well it’s nothing new. But this is how it’s done properly.

The voice is gorgeous but the songs are strong too. A Way To Say Goodbye also has a wonderful, just-rightly-odd guitar lick underpinning as Pixx (aka Hannah Rodgers) soars. It’s Beach House without the recorded-in-a-room-full-of-damp-phonebooks feel (or blatant non-feel as it were).

Flee features a sparse tinkle of gospel-infused piano, hand-claps and finger-clicks and this wonderful approach to ballad-singing.

And then the closer, perhaps the strongest track, Deplore – well it’s almost as if Warpaint had decided to rewrite Blam Blam Blam’s Don’t Fight It Marsha.

Not a note out of place here, not one incorrect move. I’ve heard traces of this sound in Grimes, in Hunter, in Little Bark. In many places. Others might have found it in Lana Del Rey (I still think that’s taking shortcuts in thinking and/or listening) but I’ve never heard it like this; so assured. So spot on. So simple – yet startlingly effective.