Gwyneth Herbert: All The Ghosts | CD, Naim Edge

Gwyneth Herbert's latest collection, 'All The Ghosts', continues further along her own idiosyncratic path. It carries ten terrific songs, which speak to you directly, without forethought for genre or category. In their melodic immediacy and observational characterization, you might hear the Lennon-McCartney of 'Sgt Pepper', or the Ray Davies of 'Lola', rather than any jazz stereotype.

The songs are populated by a living, breathing cast of beaten-down dreamers, jaded city-dwellers, and women in a quandary. There is a beautiful prostitute with a split lip, pining to be free to return to mother Russia. There is also a wicked, myth-enshrouded temptress, luring in young men with drink and drugs. And there is a Mini, the same age as the singer, as human and 'real' in its wheezing everyday tasks as any of the other folk. These, simply, are songs about people, about life, as the singer has precociously learnt to understand them at her tender age.