COMPOSERS: Nelli Rees
LABELS: Zone
PERFORMER: NELLI REES
CATALOGUE NO: 7 ZOCD 78503 (distr. Candid)
Just before we leave the vocal booth I can’t resist throwing in a quick mention of nelli rees’s Jazz Noir. Rees is Russian, lives in Yorkshire and sings like Lotte Lenya fronting a trip-hop crew.
This is jazz by default only, in that despite the jazz instrumentation there’s a predominance of spacey rock backbeats and more than a little production technology in the mix. The songwriting is occasionally cackhanded, with some rather banal lyrics thrust oddly to the foreground by the arrangements, but more adventurous listeners will love what she does.