★★★★
“I was born in 1986,” Laura Mvula’s said of Pink Noise’s inspiration. “I came out of the womb wearing shoulder pads.” One has to feel primarily for her mother, while also hoping Mvula’s since exchanged her wardrobe, but this description of her reinvention isn’t only colourful but also selfaware. Admittedly 80s references aren’t entirely new to her, but here they’re significantly bolder. From Safe Passage’s opening keyboards and staccato programmed rhythm, her third LP is decked out to such an extent in the era’s finery – not least the crisp Jam & Lewis production of Janet Jackson’s Control, which arrived just two months before Mvula – it’s a wet dream for fetishists. No wonder Coldplay’s Chris Martin, currently indulging his own 80s proclivities, sent fans to Church Girl: his generation will struggle to resist the nostalgic appeal of its focal synth crunches and 808 beats.