Lucinda Belle

Tuesday night folding laundry, thinking over nights gone past and faded connections. That wistful vibe is at the heart of the single 'Washed Up on Love' and permeates throughout Think Big: Like Me, the latest album from Oscar-nominated singer and composer, Lucinda Belle. The “break-up album” often touches on those quiet moments alone, occupied by mundane tasks, reliving those times past with another. Replete with 6/8 ballads featuring warm jazz chords, and recorded with all the vintage analog gear of the old 50s crooners, the album is heavy nostalgia wrapped in a soft blanket. The San Fransisco-based singer and harpist has an impressive CV having collaborated and toured with many A-list heavy-hitters and even given a talk at TEDxManchester on looping technologies and again showcasing her prowess on the harp. With this latest record, Belle combines her innovative approach to the 45-stringed monster with the jazzy chanteuse style to reinvigorate the format.

Think Big: Like Me thoroughly traces the various stages of a separation from the initial punch-in-the-gut pain and tears, to swearing off the opposite sex, through the long process of reassessment and moving on. 'Baby Don't Cry' opens the album as a message back from your future self to shirk the weighty trappings of regret and excessive sentimentality even though at the time, it may be all you can feel. The familiar lounge act piano-voice duet is joined by a conquistador trumpet urging you to move on and Belle's flourishing harp sending dream-like waves into your psyche. Bursting from the ethereal scene, the piano gets a skip in its step and Belle lays out her advice from the heartbroken with a track that lives comfortably in the space between Amy Winehouse's 'Back to Black' and Elle King's 'Ex's and Oh's'.

'Where Have All the Good Men Gone' keeps the bouncing piano going with an indictment of Belle's failed dating attempts, longing for the elusive perfect man. She slips from Motown bopping bells into dub-style reggae without skipping a beat. Her harp echoes the spell of a fresh love interest on 'New Boy'. A long lingering coo melts seamlessly into a slow, satisfying saunter. She daydreams about a new situation and new possibilities. The aforementioned 'Washed Up on Love' anchors the latter half of the album with a slow dance 6/8 sway filled to the brim with laundry metaphors. The heavy emotion poured into that innocuous task makes for a rather ingenious lazy afternoon anthem for modern love.

The album wraps with Belle alone with her harp, weaving a fairy tale aura with words of tempered wisdom warning of the perils of getting lost to love. The delicate instrument can't help but add a warmly surreal texture to bookend the cathartic and cautionary album. The record is brilliantly executed, walking that line between mournful and empowered and finding a distinctive mood to steep that in. The songs do often call back to King and Winehouse but the harp adds another dimension that softens some of the callousness that can cover their work.