Maple Bee
Album: These Four Worlds
Label: Easy Action
Tracks: 11
Website: http://www.maplebee.com

Maple Bee is the alter-ego of creative singer-musician-songwriter Melanie Garside, whose artistic adventures since her Nottingham student days (20 years ago) have encompassed the formation of indie noisenik band Tabitha Zu, and membership of Our Lady Of Miracles/Vertigo Angels, Queen Adreena, famed classical a cappella troupe Mediaeval Baebes and most recently the duo Huski (with Pike Galloway). In parallel with which, Melanie somehow found time to release several solo albums (as Maple Bee); the first of these (Fossil) had suffered distribution problems, were it not for which this young lady may well have been The Next Big Thing at the start of the 90s.

Album number (I think) five, These Four Worlds, now appears, to further delight those who valued the hopeful tone of Melanie's 2008 record Home. This latest record is a calm, contemplative offering, on which Melanie seems to be very much at ease, more at peace with her own creativity and, after managing to reconcile the different facets of her personality, now generally free of angst. Musically as well as lyrically, the contents reflect these different facets - the comforting, healing nature of the melodies and cadences; the forward-looking artistic mind; the free-thinking individual operating without boundaries; and yes, the occasionally self-indulgent (but not negatively so) creativity. Aside from a Steve Forbert cover (It Isn't Gonna Be That Way), all the songs are Melanie's own compositions.

The inventive musical settings are all Melanie's own work too, with an abundance of ingenious touches involving multitracked vocal harmonies, samples and string texturings; she also benefits from supportive keyboard work from Sophie Spinoza on around half of the tracks. The sequence of the disc takes us through some drifting, atmospheric and gently enhanced acoustica, from the medieval-inflected No Ropes On Me and through to the pounding percussion heartbeat of Keep This Moment Alive, the stately approach of Metal Bird, the scratchy beats of Twig That Cracks, the poetic pleading of The Place In Between and the cautiously upholstered uptempo indie of Volta, while the closing You Be My Heart tolls the bell and references a plainchant melody line. It's a compelling collection.

David Kidman