Clara Sanabras
Album: The Emblem
Label: Smudged Discs
Tracks: 11
Website: www.clarasanabras.co.uk

"The Emblem" is an album that is full of big songs. Elements of it have a very show tune feel, certainly a real sense of the theatrical. It's a feeling enhanced by big band, multi vocal approach, including the odd call and response section.

There's a very multi-cultural feel to the album which goes way beyond the odd song being sang in French. One area where this become particularly apparent is through the instrumentation on the album, which naturally affects the way the album sounds. I'm always impressed by any album that includes the nickelharpa amongst the instruments and there's a positive array of guitars.

Part of the reason is that Clara Sanabras herself has such a mixture of influences, Sioux and Gypsy blood run in her veins, born in France, raised in Spain and based in London, all of these elements feature in her music.

Like a lot of albums these days, there's quite a political element that runs through the album. It may not be as blunt as it is with some musicians, but Sanabras is less in your face and hits you with a more beguiling approach. "Truth Be Told" sounds like a piece of nightclub glitz when you suddenly realise that you are in the middle of an assault on the way big business manoeuvres the media to it's agenda and you drift from the music to the narrative and back again.

There's personal politics mixed in there as well "Woman, Girl, Juxtaposed" is a well written and thought provoking song on a life in the female condition, that I found fascinating to listen to and it's definitely an album that is there to be listened to.

Bohemian and seductive, subtle in delivery and arrangement "The Emblem" is an album that sticks it's head above the parapet and is rewarded for doing so, a real cornucopia of a work.

Neil King