Essie Jain - 'The Inbetween' (Leaf) Released 17/11/08

On ‘The Inbetween’, Londoner Essie Jain has fashioned one of the most interior and autumnal shaded albums to end the year, perhaps even of the year.  Featuring a ballast of reflective piano arrangements scored with the help of her New York band, we find a smidge of trumpet or clarinet here and cello there to shoulder spartan tunes roused from a five day recording session with a beseeching songbook that squares up with undeclared relationships. Addressing the title, ‘The Inbetween’ boils down to a life situation, a between stage of arrest and suspension, a stasis before the next stage can be ushered. There’s an unshakeable confidence and conviction here compared to the melodious folk tones of her debut ‘We Made This Ourselves’, an impetus to free that resonant quicksilver voice that Jain harbours - let’s cosy up folk darlings Sandy Denny and Shirley Collins alongside female protagonists Chrissie Hynde,  Amanda Palmer (The Dresden Dolls) and PJ Harvey to get the picture.

Opener ‘The Eavesdrop’ muses with a solo piano and strings giving indication to the tempo to expect, Jain - “…can you wait for the mountains to fall/ for the Eden of it all…”, likewise on the autumnal ‘Stop’ and ‘I Ask You’ where a haunting quality in Jain’s vocal brings Marissa Nadler to mind, while ‘I Remember It Just Like This’ fashions ethereal and translucent harmonics. Witty observation and humorous asides cushion the romantic entreaties on the chamber-folk of ‘You’, Jain singing “…it doesn’t matter if your Dad’s a jerk/ your Mum too…”, while on the theatrical ‘Please’ Jain counsels “…please wake up/ don’t get lost in their madness…and as we drop off the earth/ we‘ll give thanks for the ride…”.

The rousing ‘Here We Go’ is a strident and swinging work like a fettered PJ Harvey where Jain allows her voice to  bellow - “…it’s a lifetime of regret/ it can never be found…”, while the robust ‘Not Yours’ shows Jain with a sting in her tail, and ‘The Rights’ squares up with a pirate-like cabaret tune à la Brecht & Weill/Amanda Palmer - “…ohhhh when your takin’ me down/ it’s a frightful thing when you wait in the lost and found…”, scything with sneering “ah ha haaa’s” like a merry widow. The centre-stage ‘Do It’ takes a hold by the lapels, such is the strength in Jain’s gentle yet muscular voice, stating “…in my heart/ I ammm hollow/ there’s a beeehheet in my heart/ I cannnn’t follow…”.

It would be wrong to construe ‘The Inbetween’ as ballads, more so meditations on a situation. Look to the tender ‘Weight Off Me’ which feels tasselled to Damien Rice‘s ‘Eskimo‘ and Van Morrison’s ‘Comfort You’ (Veedon Fleece) for a song offering succour and support, and ‘Goodbye’ with its’ Shirley Collins-like authentic folk tones that Jain has concealed, a track with such a melancholic beauty that it makes a gentle art of letting go. ‘The Inbetween’ feels such a wonderfully wrought and transpersonal work, it’s hard to conceive Essie Jain remaining in the doldrums or unheard of for long.