Louise Le May - Tell Me One Thing That Is New [Album]

‘Must be one of those Laura Marling types.’

Actually, you’d be wrong. Well, half wrong. In fact, Louise Le May’s style is quite original, and her debut album ‘‘Tell Me One Thing That is New’’ demonstrates just that quite beautifully. When this pearl of an album landed on my doorstep, I thought I knew what to expect from it, the black and white album cover of the London lass’ hands sunk in water seemed far too predictable, which is why I happily obliged in eating a relatively large piece of humble pie after just one listen of the album in its entirety.

The opening track ‘Be My Guru’ bursts into your ears without so much as even an introduction with the words ‘I want you to be my guru’. Concise and to the point, as I’m sure you’ll agree. Every now and then comes some discordant piano notes, but you get the impression that they’re meant to be less discordant and more ‘I’m here to mix things up a bit’, although it hasn’t quite worked out like that. Although that said, it does the song no harm. It becomes immediately apparent that Le May has a staggeringly haunting voice, almost like a star from a musical in its style and clarity, but not to an extent which can be considered tedious.

There isn’t a huge range of instruments used in this album, in fact I can’t recall hearing anything more than a piano and an acoustic guitar, with a bass guitar and drum coming in every few tracks for an appearance to successfully bulk out the sounds a bit. However, glance on the back of the album and you’ll see that there’s also usage of a cellos, violins and violas (albeit used subtly and softly to go almost unnoticed).

‘The Only Fish’ shows off a jangly piano tune throughout the track, which can really only be described as exceedingly pretty and sweet, and it’s not impossible to imagine it in the background of something like Springwatch, whilst watching two woodland creatures chase each other around in high definition. It’s a song which can be easily related to, its slow rhythm poking at your mind like an order to make you reminisce about good times passed.

After the first four tracks, you might start to think that it’s getting a bit samey. You’d be stupid to think that, as I was. As soon as you reach ‘War With Love’ and hear the first deep, melancholic piano note, you know you’re in for a change. After this Le May sings the words ‘war with love’ again and again in an extremely eerie way. After thirty seconds, you’ll either be feeling scared, astonished or thinking that she may well claim the title of the would-be lovechild of Jeff Buckley and Kate Bush. The rest of the song retains a similarly ghostly and almost unearthly feel, giving it quite a Bat For Lashes element which is simply gorgeous. I didn’t think I’d like this track when it first started, but it just works, earning it the not so coveted title of the best song on the album, as voted by me.

The final two tracks are both instrumentals of ‘The Only Fish’ and ‘Be My Guru’ and are aptly named ‘The Only Fish II’ and Be My Guru II’. Why these tracks have made the album, I don’t know. Maybe they’d run out of ideas. This was certainly the case when it came to naming the tracks anyway.

Overall, this is a good album, verging - maybe - on great. Louise Le May, take a bow. Your heartfelt lyrics, acoustic tunes and spooky sounds have well and truly won me over. Thank God you’re not just ‘one of those Laura Marling types’.