Talk To Strangers (LP)

Talk To Strangers is the bewitching debut album from Suffolk-born singer-songwriter Fiona Bevan, released 28th April on Navigator Records. Bevan describes her debut album as “pop in disguise”, and the dozen, dynamic songs have hooks, harmonies and melodies that linger from first listen, but are defiantly timeless and purposely hard to pin down. Bevan, who has already tasted success as a chart-topping songwriter for One Direction, wrote all 12 songs on Talk To Strangers, which was recorded in producer Shawn Lee’s Bloomsbury studio on entirely analogue equipment. Bevan plays guitar, violin, double bass, accordion, and harp, and even adds the occasional whistle of birdsong. Holding everything together is her extraordinary, sweet voice, as unique and distinctive as her mop of peroxide curls. The album was mastered in San Francisco by the legendary George Horn, who has been cutting vinyl since the ‘60s for musicians including Paul Simon, Sly & The Family Stone, Bob Dylan, and John Coltrane. Bevan was born into a musical family, who sang songs from black and white films and old musicals around a piano, their favourites being from Cole Porter and Doris Day. A relative of Robert Louis Stevenson (he was her great great grandfather’s cou­sin), Bevan grew up immersed in books and studied English Literature at university. Consequently, Talk To Strangers is littered with references to film and literature. The jazz-tinged Rebel Without A Cause was written after the London riots – James Dean being a metaphor for listless youth – but it’s also a love song that offers a fleeting glimpse of a relationship at a specific point in time. Bluesy piano ballad The Exorcist nimbly nails a lover’s jealousy of their partner’s ex and borrows from Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca. The beautiful melody and beguiling vocal of Us And The Darkness belie the circumstances in which it was written, when a heartbroken Bevan suffered a bout of insomnia following the collapse of a relationship. The album’s gorgeous closing track, the lush The Last Days Of Decadence, was inspired by both the financial crash and a flyer bearing the same name that Bevan was handed in the street. On Talk To Strangers first single, The Machine (out March 10th), the hypnotic rhythm and clanging percussion are in vivid contrast to the spritely vocal and the frisky, looped acoustic guitar. The single comes backed with a remix by multi-talented artist/writer/pro­ducer Ed Harcourt, which features languid guest vocals from south London rapper Fem Fel, who is returning a favour: Bevan was the featured vocalist on his single Over, which gained Radio 1 support and was chosen as Zane Lowe's Next Hype last November. Fiona Bevan has already established a stellar career as an in-demand songwriter. As well as commissions for film, classical compositions, and a Tate exhibition, she co-wrote Little Things with Ed Sheeran, a 2012 No.1 single for One Direction. Last year, Bevan wrote, recorded and toured with jazz vocalist Gwyneth Herbert. Reviewing the show in London, The Guardian wrote “Bevan took us on startling odysseys that suggested Erykah Badu, Joanna Newsom and Kate Bush spine-tinglingly joined”. Most recently, Bevan was in Los Angeles co-writing with Grammy Award-winning producer John Shanks. Bevan has been performing solo and in bands with dozens of other artists in all sorts of genres of music since she first stepped on stage in Colchester aged 15. There was even a brief spell as a bassist in a band mentored by Adam Ant and fronted by Georgina Baillie (the woman at the centre of the Sachsgate scandal). She has spent the past few years perfecting her craft on the London club circuit, hosting a regular night at Servant Jazz Quarters in Dalston. Bevan has also supported many of her friends and peers including Nick Mulvey, Lianne La Havas, Sam Lee, John Smith, and the aforementioned Ed Sheeran and Gwyneth Herbert.