NICOLA LESTER – COLOURS

Melbournite Nicola Lester carries an air of the modern loner, possessing the same elfen phrasing and whispery vocal timbre of Cat Power and Emiliana Torrini. Her acutely arranged acoustic instrumentation, horns and double-tracked melodies are rather bewitching from the outset; even the mysterious artwork, a collection of masquerade photographs of Lester in flamboyant costuming in humblingly bleak and simple locations serves to illustrate the vibe of this record well. She is a creature of the quietly understated. Elements of her elder generation sometimes appear, such as the Judee Sill-esque musical-hall romp Turn It Over and the deliciously bittersweet Don’t  Stop Believing.The sonics here are sparse, Lester’s piano is milky and house-bound, the drums quietly patter away, Libby Chow’s french horn eerily thrums here and there. The title track is probably as close as the album gets to garnering a pop hit – and it is here, in a nutshell she nails the sentiment of her dark folk message – “it’s the colours that smooth the wood, it’s the colours that make the bad things good”.

***1/2