CLAIRE MARTIN: TAKE MY HEART (Linn AKD093)

If you haven't come across Claire Martin's voice before, now is the time to catch up. Not that this collection will appeal to all purists. Martin, a truly world-class British singer, has always had a taste for unconventional material, albeit delivered in swinger's mode. Take My Heart marks a change of direction into more commercial waters. It is a difficult trick to pull off without slipping into glossy radio-play cliches. But this album generally avoids those pitfalls, balancing the Capitol-era introspection of the Sinatra ballad Only The Lonely with the more contemporary melancholia of Elvis Costello's Baby Plays Around and David Sylvian's Brilliant Tress. Even Noel Gallagher turns up, strumming away on his laid back treatment of Lennon and McCartney's Help! - an arrangement that would have sat quite happily in the Patsy Cline songbook. The producer, Paul Stacey [who works with Oasis], places Martin very much centre-stage, uninterrupted by the extended solos that have been an occasional distraction in the past. Pop? Jazz? Why not just file under Class?

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c 1998 Andrew Turner

aturner@interalpha.co.uk

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