Clara Sanabras - Clara And The Real Lowdown Album Review

Rating: 4 out of 5

Clara Sanabras
Clara and The Real Lowdown
Smudged Records
Album Review

If the female folk that makes its way onto ads like Audi's and Orange's has any appeal, and you're into performance art, then Clara Sanabras has something for your mind. Originally from Barcelona, Sanabras has made a name for herself as a singer, performing with groups such as Natacha Atlas' Acoustic Band, and Theatre of Voices, performing a wide range of music from medieval and world music to Stockhausen.

She has also worked in theatre - at the National Theatre and the New Shakespeare's Globe - and in film (on screen as a street musician in The Merchant of Venice starring Al Pacino, she can be heard on the soundtrack with music by Jocelyn Pook). Now a Londoner, she has turned her attention to writing and performing her own music, teaming up with producer and composer Harvey Brough to record an extraordinary collection of songs, some remembered from her childhood in Spain, some from favourite old films, some original. This is cerebral music, jazzy, latin and beautifully performed - like Later With Jools Holland to the nth degree. It is a whole shelf above Madeleine Peyroux - like Andrew Bird's classical side given its head in a Barcelona gallery. Lovely.

4/5

Mike Rea