Annabel (Lee) | By the Sea... and Other Solitary Places

The first track I heard was on an If Music sampler - If Music is a subsidiary of the luminaries Ninja Tunes for those who aren't familiar with them – it was the track Believe. At first blush I figured it was some cool old re-issue because last year Ninja Tunes and If released a compilation offering all kinds of cool vintage stuff like Henri Texier's 'Quand le Blues s'en Ira' from '77, for instance or Phillip Lambro's 'Boat Chase', the theme from the obscure '75 movie Murph the Smurf. So I hear Annabel (Lee)'s Believe and I see the If Music tag and I figure it's a re-issue and an elegant one at that; lush strings and looping flutes, plucked harps and fat double bass sauntering beneath it all with these delicate vocals reminiscent of Billie Holiday simmering on the surface.

I hold myself to be something of a connoisseur especially of the more concealed artists who don't manage to find the spotlight and I couldn't work out why I'd never heard this woman's name even. So I went searching and the second track I unearthed was Breathe Us and despite this track had similar string sounds and fat, dark brass stabs reminiscent of that same sixties sound, the production was quite clearly progressive. The third track I dug up, Invisible Barriers, reminded me of Joni Mitchel but with this softly-psychedelic, ambient-cabaret vibe cushioning it. That was it for me, I went to the Ninja Tune website and procured the whole album. It's called By the Sea... and Other Solitary Places.

This album is a thing of beauty; a work of art. It's a duo project, produced by the London-based Richard E and sung by the enchanting, New York-based Annabel. It is Cabaret-style, Neo-classical, twisted-underwater jazz, acoustic-folk on LSD. The duo was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's poem of the same name which begins: “It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea...”; a poem about the untimely death of a man's true love.

I know it's probably not for everyone, but... I'm just not sure why. It's a soothing, melancholy piece of art; a nostalgic charm to ward away any fears you may have about modern music losing it's connection to anything real. If you can remember Portishead's Dummy album, this could be likened to that but without the trip-hop beats.

We are told that Annabel was “searching for a way out of the madness of monotony, singing jazz and cabaret standards by numbers”, while Richard, “a highly respected though discontented dance music arranger/producer knew it was only a matter of time before he would chance upon the river of uncharted waters.” We are told that they met despite being divided by the Atlantic Ocean.

At once bright and dark, mesmeric, By the Sea... and Other Solitary Places lies somewhere between a sacred invocation to the spirits of artists such as Billie or Miles and a soundtrack by Les Baxter.

God Bless Ninja Tunes for staying true to their nature and finding hidden gems such as Annabel (Lee).