by Joseph Purcell

With all the shimmering elegance of life in an F. Scott Fitzgerald novella, the new single from Alex Jayne is a perfect slice of hazy pop. Stripped back with the intimacy of Hannah Georgas’ recent LP, All That Emotion, or Lana Del Rey’s debut, Jayne’s voice teases, as Clouds threatens to break from its tight arrangement – but at no point here does the London based songwriter lose her cool.

Described by Jayne as an ‘endless sense of summer where you’re so wrapped up in your world, you don’t notice the clouds above,’ it is a track of delightful beauty. But the songwriter also displays her intensely personal songwriting once more – creating a juxtaposition as the air of disconnect becomes apparent – narrating from the position of an ostracised character whose reality is filled with struggle and the ominous, looming emotions that encompasses. Comfortably moving from the more overt pop sound of Backseat, Clouds is a remarkable look at the talents of a burgeoning new artist.

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