Totally devoted: the London soul of Jessie Ware

First published in Loud And Quiet

In the video for 'Running', the velveteen R&B single released by Jessie Ware earlier this year, the slinkily attired singer throws diva shapes from under a monument of lustrous black hair, framed by a red stage curtain and gold leather upholstery. It's preposterously opulent, and coupled with an invitation to interview her at a chichi Clapham restaurant, your correspondent was half-expecting the full Diva Experience – two hours late, no eye contact, untouched salads, PR bod present to oversee proceedings, the whole drill.

But at precisely the allotted time, Jessie Ware bursts into the premises with the biggest grin, firmest handshake and shiniest hair you could hope to encounter in a nascent pop star. She's just come from a video interview around Brixton Market, which took a turn for the strange when a tramp wandered into the frame and “put his cap on my head,” she says wide-eyed.

“So I said to him, I'm really sorry, but I'm not having you put some nit cap on my head. I hate to be a diva but I need to wash my hair now.” In the next 40 minutes that's the only sign of anything approaching diva behaviour from this Clapham-born girl, whose self-deprecating humour, silly faces and quickfire chatter are instantly endearing and sadly impossible to replicate on the page.

In a limbo between life and infinity on The Invisible's 'Rispah'

First published in Loud And Quiet

The Invisible
Rispah
Ninja Tune

The art-pop genre-blenders' second album is an 11-song threnody, an ode of mourning following the death of frontman Dave Okumu’s mother. Named after her, Rispah is bookended by a loose choir of African voices like those Okumu says he heard at the wake, articulating the sorrow and joy entangled in this record, which acknowledges with a heavy heart that even death can bring a renewed passion for life.

As you’d expect from the The Invisible craftsmen, it's lusciously produced – drums flutter and fade as Okumu’s breathily angelic voice drifts into a limbo between life and infinity. The mournful electronics owe much to Radiohead (and the guitar on ‘Surrender’ is straight out of In Rainbows), but the decayed funkiness built up from distorted drums and shivering guitars is uncannily voguish, echoing the exhumed ‘80s R&B we've heard lately on records by Kindness and others.