Update: I’ve updated this review since I received the full EP, which is out now.
I’ve been enjoying a song called Passing Sun, which is by Cara Mitchell. Cara is from Aberdeen, and she is sixteen.
I mean that’s just not fair. When I was sixteen the best thing I could do was score from a free kick on Fifa 2006. It kills me when these types come along, with all their talent. Not fair at all. Anyway, there’s a single coming out soon, on September 23, the majority of which is streamed here.
She has a gorgeously unique voice, matched by quirky lyrics and pared back acoustic guitar melodies. The instrumentation is as special as her vocals, having been produced to sound like a cross between jangle guitar and acoustic.
Passing Sun is lovely, a sweet and idiosyncratic song, whilst Next October is equally as smart, yet at a faster, less melancholic tempo. Both tracks reminded me of Bon Iver and Birdy – if there could be a cross between the two I think this would be it. Angus and Julia Stone, an Edwin Bol track on which Cara features (not included in the EP), is more brooding, but is a good exhibit of her vocal talents. Little Birdies is a lovely, sweet track that exhibits the vocal talent she possesses, but whilst exploiting that vulnerable feel that goes along with it.
It’d be very interesting to see where this goes – I hope she builds a musical repertoire gradually, and properly capitalises on it a lá Laura Marling (after all, Alas I Cannot Swim was written when she was 16), but part of that process needs not to isolation from hype. Ideally, as a listener, I’d want her to grow artistically on her own. Because she’s good now, but she could be brilliant.
Have You Ever Wondered EP will be released on September 23 via AGP.
