Review
Another exiled Londoner is Essie Jain, now resident in New York; our loss America's gain. Ostensibly a conventional piano-based, singer-songwriter of the intimate Joni Mitchell school, her second album, The Inbetween (Leaf, ***) distances from the pack with melodic warmth, some understated arrangements and a pristine voice that soothes away the most stubborn woes --
Q, January 2009Essie Jain - The Inbetween
****
This wondrous offering from New York-based London folkie Essie Jain is definitely a must-get album. She has an odd, rich, sad, resonant voice that sounds classically trained and her music is a beguiling mix of folk, torch song, classical and cabaret, some of it quite impossibly jaunty (Here We Go is a real stomper), some dreamily contemplative. Highly recommended. --
Sunday Telegraph, November 16, 2008Essie Jain
The Inbetween
The Leaf Label
****
There's a corner of New York that is forever England...
New York-based Londoner Essie Jain's schooling in Vashti Bunyan and Nick Drake is undeniable. Her second album, however, builds upon the sparsely strummed and whispered folk of debut We Made This Ourselves, fleshing songs out with brass and strings that flawlessly suit her received pronunciation. Though this Englishness is occasionally jarring - "The Rights" is almost Gilbert and Sullivan - opener "The Eavesdrop" is an immaculately weighted piece of chamber folk. Clearly, she has her sights set beyond folk club stages.
Eden Parke
--
Uncut, January 2009
