Though she’s still relatively unknown as 2013 dawns, it looks as though HELENA JESELE is going to be a name freely bandied around over the next twelve months.
Her debut LP ‘Sweet Sticky Fix’ arrives sounding perfectly-formed and – superficially – it appears to have teleported in from the ether, trailing the sort of production credits (Paul O’Duffy of Amy Winehouse fame and Truth & Soul, responsible for Adele’s ‘19’ and Aloe Blacc) that most aspiring young chanteuses would sell significant family members for.
So we’re talking rags-to-riches, overnight success here then, are we? Hardly, for – as is so often the case – Helena Jesele’s story is considerably more complex than that. Yes, there’s no denying this 6 foot tall Dublin-born urban soul-jazz singer has an enviable contacts book and sports the sort of smouldering good looks perfect for countless magazine covers, but she’s learned her craft the hard way, eking out a living performing innumerable gigs singing the Great American Songbook at venerable London jazz haunts such as The Pigalle Club and Ronnie Scott’s. It’s a circuit famous for breaking as well as making and it’s to Jesele’s credit that she‘s emerged as a contender capable of dipping into the past to create something vibrant and relevant in her own image.
A couple of years in the making, her debut LP ‘Sweet Sticky Fix’ was partly produced using a string quartet and live brass at London’s famous Pinewood Studios sound stage and from sessions with the Truth & Soul production team in Brooklyn, New York, with musicians best known for sessions with The Black Keys. Something of an advantageous position to begin from you’d say (and you’d be right), yet Helena Jesele never sounds overawed by the company. Indeed, her smoky, soul-imbued vocal style stamps its inimitable presence all over these ten finely-crafted slices of tasty’ n’ compelling retro-tinged pop.
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Despite its title, ‘Sweet Sticky Fix’ is anything but saccharine. It’s bright and immediate in places – not least on the lithe’ n’ slinky opener ‘Breathe In Love’ and the infectiously summery Motown-style stomp of recent single ‘Sun Is Rising’ – but tracks ranging from the Portishead-style intrigue of ‘Higher Mountains’ through to the glazed, Mazzy Star-ish sultriness of ‘Angel Save Me’ proudly show off the album’s depth and versatility. The eminently seductive ‘Let The Game Begin’, meanwhile, more than puts Adele to shame in the widescreen, Bond theme department.
Besides, it’s not all seduction and sensuality. Behind its brash Earth, Wind & Fire-esque soul mask, ‘Lovesick Avenue’ (“it’s on the corner of Unrequited and Heartache”) is a melancholy baby, while the vivid, matter-of-fact ‘Girl In London’ (“Could I have loved you better? Maybe/ Would you really have left her for me...really?”) aches with the kind of exile and loneliness only the stoniest of hearts can slough off.
Bright and glossy without ever sounding trite or forced and frequently (but favourably) aligning itself with classic ‘60s pop, ‘Sweet Sticky Fix’ will perhaps inevitably earn its creator a lot of Amy Winehouse comparisons. Whether the world really needs any Amy substitutes or not is a moot point, of course, but it’s not an issue we need to dwell on here. Helena Jesele is very much her own woman and we ought to welcome her on her own terms.
Helena Jesele online
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