Notes From The Treehouse

A year or two ago, Laura Marling popped out of the wood work. She released a lovely little album. She spoke gently and carefully on TV, looked like a skinny little boy and when she performed she blew everyone away with that voice. She was, is, a talented singer-song writer. A folksy singer-song writer. Very polite girl. The type you could bring home to the parents, tell them who she was and the parents would wonder if she sounded like Dido and you could rest assured knowing full well that she didn’t sound like Dido and worry over the fact that this might be a bad thing because Dido, after all, sells records and makes buckets of cash. Folk doesn’t really sell. Or does it?

Well, who knows… But Fleet Foxes did reinvent that whole Byrds sound and made it their own. And there was of course that Robert Plant/Alison Krauss album which won loads of awards but wasn’t actually THAT good. There were others, many, many others. The list too long really. So here’s London’s Alessi’s Ark with her debut Notes from the Treehouse. The Alessi of the title is, full name; Alessi Laurent-Marke. Disheartening for anyone above her age she’s only eighteen and immensely gifted.

The album, overall, is a mish-mash of folk and dripping pieces of sunshine and summer and happiness and all good corny nice things. There’s no violent riffs or Bowie-esque hooting to be had, no sax solos or incessantly hypnotic drum rolls (Damn!) BUT there is much to like here. It opens with the beautiful ‘Magic Weather’ and peels off into the second number ‘The Horse’ which can only be surmised as what, possibly, solicitors would play for all the invited guests at the company weekend BBQ: It’s safe and lovely and could quite possibly appeal to both sexes. But does it? Does it REALLY?

It was by the third track ‘Ibbon Lakes’ which is quite a good song, light and catchy if a tad sullen, that it hit me that a few things were going on here. One: her voice sounds exactly like Morcheeba’s Skye Edwards and Two: as the album rolls on, it becomes very obvious that this is not an album many men will like or if so, ever admit to liking. This sounds crass and easy for me to say but it’s all a bit, well, girly. The Morcheeba similarity is slightly unsettling but the more off putting factor is quite simply that the music becomes very soft and airy. Not exactly commercial, but yes OK, that too, commercial. It all sounds like Mazzy Star after a while and the similarities just keep coming. And neither Mazzy Star nor Morcheeba were ever really that good to begin with.

But there are moments of brilliance it must be said. ‘Memories’ is, frankly, amazing. It mixes all the ingredients and gets the correct result with a charming and hook-laden stand-out song. ‘Hummingbird’ too is a sweet number; Alessi’s passionate voice rustles throughout like a breeze. For certain, she can sing and she looks destined for as much success as folk music can bring her.

So, yes it is a good album, just not an amazing one. It’s a debut so of course, there’s a learning curve and things can, presumably, only go up and up for young Alessi. It is though, not an album to appeal to a wide audience. This is not one for the lads keep in mind, but one that will, I suspect, appeal to droves of young female fans.