Gwenno
Heaven sent: Gwenno gets expansive and cinematic on her latest.
★★★★
Utopia
HEAVENLY. CD/DL/LP
Gwenno Saunders taps more new beginnings on solo LP four.
THE MANY lives of Gwenno Saunders – fronting Brighton indie trio The Pipettes or working in Las Vegas-based musical theatre, for instance – here coalesce into an expansive, cinematic record billed as her first to address adulthood, aged 44. Now singing mostly in English (rather than Welsh or Cornish) as she reconnects with piano-based songwriting, her naturalistic voice is a relaxed conduit to elegantly detailed songs about the psychogeography of her native Cardiff (Ghost Of You), expectant motherhood (St Ives New School) and Jarvis Cocker dancing stylishly alone (kitchen sink pop jangling Dancing On Volcanoes). On 73, part-inspired by Saunders’ erstwhile London bus route, top-deck vistas take on a transporting, clouds at 20,000 feet aspect, typical of Utopia’s literate and layered, mostly mid-tempo content. Fans of Goldfrapp’s Felt Mountain or maybe 1968’s Brigitte Fontaine Est… Folle! will enjoy.