Olivia Chaney
Album: Olivia Chaney EP
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 5
Website: http://www.oliviachaney.net

This is a rare treasure indeed. Olivia is a captivating artist whose musical background informs her every gesture, and yet from it she forges in her own music something startlingly original. On this EP, which signals Olivia's debut on record (that is, apart from the occasional tracks on nu-folk compilations like Oak Ash & Thorn and The Woodbine & Ivy Band), four of the five tracks are Olivia's own compositions, the fifth being a perceptive setting of a 15th century poem by François Villon, of which more in due course.

The self-penned songs together present a well contrasted menu, which nevertheless proves its own special unity in exhibiting a common tendency towards unusually interesting melodic content that both supports and reflects Olivia's well-developed gift for intelligent wordsmithery and lovingly poetic expression replete with an invigorating use of linguistic and literary allusions. It's easy, then, to appreciate that Olivia formally studied composition as well as piano and voice (at both Chetham's and the RAM), yet while that classical training has clearly stood her in good stead as a performer - her vocal control is flawless, her tone and diction brilliantly managed, and her piano playing as sensitive and responsive, and undistracting, as it is precisely configured (and unfussy) - there's no impression of staged, trained "act" about her performance, instead an overwhelming feeling that she totally inhabits her songs (in what I'd call the true Romantic sense), entirely naturally and without any artifice.

Take the opening track, Back Garden Beautiful, which comes across as almost the modern-day equivalent of a classical Lied (art-song); here, Olivia's extraordinarily confident vocal delivery carries the listener on an adventure, a veritable wave of musical and lyrical invention wherein the actual melodic progress of the tune is almost entirely unexpected (incidentally mirroring the unpredictable and stimulating nature of her imagery). Olivia's intense owning of the song, her total involvement in the poetic language, is spellbinding, and her dynamic responses to the text in the final verse demonstrate something of the controlled poise of, say, Linda Thompson or June Tabor. A similarly unusual and inventive approach to melodic contour is apparent in the restless, edgy stream-of-consciousness of Imperfections, Olivia's intrinsically artful piano backdrop to which recalls the dramatic simplicity of that on some of Joni Mitchell's early recordings (coincidentally, Olivia's lyric even punningly namechecks Chelsea Morning at one point!), and when guest musicians (Oliver Coates and Jordan Hunt, on cello and violin respectively) enter for the final section, the sense of aural catharsis is very strong indeed.

Olivia then moves to the guitar to accompany herself, purposefully and again most responsively, on the The King's Horses, a limpid, beauteous folk-like creation with a melancholy and rather plaintive demeanour that quite uncannily recalls Sandy Denny's songwriting but equally is distinctively Olivia's own. Perhaps the EP's most immediately arresting track is Swimming In The Longest River, its cryptic lyric proving elusive and awash with poetry that's as ambiguous as the singer's partner-in-romance, and, sporting a rippling chamber-style accompaniment, employs a refrain focusing on a piece of quite delicious wordplay. Perversely perhaps, after a mere two verses this is succeeded by a distinctly strange, ISB-like nursery-style singsong section incorporating additional vocal contributions from Serafina Steer, Alasdair Roberts and Jordan Hunt, all of which is then capped by a reflective piano postlude. Finally comes the EP's non-original: Olivia's charming, tripping version - impeccably enunciated (en français) - of François Villon's celebrated Ballade Des Dames Du Temps Jadis, whose inimitable refrain "où sont les neiges d'antan?" now almost casually gains further telling resonances from its known referencing in works of literature (Lawrence, Kerouac and Noël Coward, among others), and in song (notably Brassens and Weill).

This gently riveting rendition brings to a singularly premature end a fabulous, if in the final analysis slightly tantalising, disc; and oh, but I so wish there were more, for Olivia's talent would effortlessly sustain a whole (long) album. I understand that a full-lengther is in the offing: the sooner the better, I say. Meantime, check out Olivia's stunning cover of Joni's A Case Of You on YouTube…Olivia's exquisite, enthralling brand of musical magic is sure a force to be reckoned with.

David Kidman