I first ran into Aria at the She Write Songs gig at Ronnie Scott’s, and then again, rather unexpectedly, at an after-show party at The Ivy Club following Nicole Zuraitis’s appearance at Ronnie Scott's later that year. At some point, the party turned into an impromptu set, with Nicole and Jo Harrop joining Aria. It was one of those wonderfully unplanned musical moments, but what really struck me was Aria’s versatility. She seemed completely at home alongside two quite different singers, adapting to the moment without ever losing her own identity.
Listening to her
debut album Rectify, it turns out that versatility is very much the point.
Aria is half
Norwegian, was raised in Hong Kong and Singapore before moving to the UK, an
upbringing across cultures that has inevitably found its way into her music. Rectify,
itself means to make right, to learn, grow and move forward, and across nine
tracks she explores relationships, desire, anger, vulnerability and the sometimes-messy
business of working out who you are and what you are prepared to accept from
other people.
It could easily
become terribly earnest.
Thankfully, it
doesn’t.
There is far too
much rhythm, groove and personality here for that.
Rectify Your Soul gets things moving with considerable confidence. Written by
Chris Montague and Sarah Gillespie, with lyrics from Aria and Gillespie, it
establishes the album’s musical territory almost immediately. This is neo-soul
at its core, contemporary in its production and songwriting, but with jazz
woven through its musical DNA.
Ross Stanley is
on keys, Tom Farmer on bass, Joel Barford on drums, and Montague on guitar, and
there is a muscularity to the playing that suits Aria perfectly. The jazz
influence shows in the musicianship, the phrasing, and the freedom within the
arrangements, but Rectify never feels
constrained by genre. Aria is essentially a contemporary soul singer drawing
freely from jazz rather than a jazz singer occasionally stepping into soul.
Home to You changes the temperature. One of the album’s most immediately
accessible songs, it possesses an easy melodic warmth, with Aria sounding open
and unforced. There is something comforting about it without the song ever
becoming overly sentimental; home feels as much like an emotional sanctuary as
a physical destination.
Angel
pulls things back again. There is a delicacy here and more space around Aria’s
vocal. One of her strengths throughout Rectify is that she doesn’t seem
frightened of that space. She allows phrases to hang and trusts the lyric
rather than feeling obliged to demonstrate what her voice can do at every
opportunity.
Then we arrive at
Resentment.
It’s a great
title because resentment is rarely as straightforward as anger. It festers. It
hangs around. Usually there is hurt somewhere underneath it, and Aria’s
performance understands that distinction. There is tension in the delivery but
vulnerability too, while the horns bring another dimension to the arrangement.
Chris Montague’s horn writing, with Poppy Daniels on trumpet and Trish Clowes
on saxophone, adds colour without turning the track into an exercise in showing
off the calibre of musicians assembled.
Belong is one of the record’s more expansive moments. Co-written
musically by Montague and Ian Barter, it is given room to breathe, developing
from quiet uncertainty into something broader and more emotionally substantial.
Aria again resists the temptation to force the destination, allowing the
arrangement to grow around her while retaining the intimacy of the vocal.
And then the
personnel change.
It’s All Your
Fault brings James Pearson to the piano, Tony Remy to guitar and Loz Garratt to
bass alongside Daniel Hester on drums, and you can feel a slightly different
musical personality emerging.
The title
promises accusation, but the song is more interesting than simply pointing a
finger at somebody. Aria sounds more assertive here, with a little more bite in
her delivery, yet blame, attraction, regret and vulnerability seem perfectly
capable of occupying the same few minutes. Pearson and Ian Barter wrote the
music, with Aria, Sarah Gillespie and Polly Gibbons responsible for the lyrics,
and there is an assuredness about the whole thing that makes it one of the
album’s most characterful turns.
Coma Cupid changes the landscape yet again.
Even the title
makes you stop. Cupid is supposed to awaken love; a coma suggests precisely the
opposite. That contradiction finds its way into the music. There is a darker,
more contemporary pulse here, and Aria responds with a cooler, more
rhythmically alert vocal. Beneath the sleekness, however, something remains
unsettled.
It’s perhaps the
clearest example on Rectify of her ability to change character without sounding
as though she has suddenly wandered onto somebody else’s album.
Only Time I Get brings us much closer again.
Written by Aria
over music by William Hobson and Chris Montague, it feels particularly
personal. Her vocal initially has an almost conversational quality, with
sufficient space around it for individual words and phrases to register. There
is an emotional imbalance at its centre, the feeling of accepting whatever
fragments of another person’s time or affection happen to be available.
Aria could have
turned that hurt into melodrama.
She doesn’t.
Instead,
disappointment accumulates through restraint — in the pauses, the held-back
phrases and the things that remain unsaid. Sometimes the most affecting vocal
performance is the one that stops just short of telling you how you are
supposed to feel.
And then, after
all that love, longing, anger and introspection, she sends us home with Bonnie
Raitt.
Something to Talk About, written by Shirley Eikhard and indelibly associated
with Raitt, could have felt like an odd addition to an album built so heavily
around Aria’s own storytelling. Instead, it makes perfect sense.
James Pearson is
back on keys with Tony Remy on guitar, and the song loosens its collar. Aria
sounds relaxed, playful and increasingly self-possessed, sitting inside the
groove rather than attacking it. After everything that has preceded it, there
is something rather satisfying about ending not in heartbreak or introspection
but with a shrug of the shoulders and the possibility of taking another chance.
Aria describes it
as a playful and optimistic ending to Rectify, and for once I’m happy to agree
with the press notes.
Because what
becomes apparent across these nine tracks is that Rectify isn’t really about
demonstrating how many genres Aria can sing.
Her versatility
is more interesting than that.
Home to You is warm and open; Belong
is searching; Resentment carries hurt
beneath its anger; Coma Cupid is
darker and more rhythmically assertive; Only
Time I Get is quietly wounded; and by Something
to Talk About she sounds as though some of that emotional weight has
finally been lifted.
She changes
emotional posture.
And yet there is
a consistent personality running through all of it.
That is perhaps
where the jazz influence matters most. It isn’t about standards, swing or
trying to make Rectify fit neatly onto a particular shelf. It is there in
Aria’s phrasing, her willingness to leave space, the interplay between the
musicians and the freedom with which the arrangements move around the songs.
Put that alongside the grooves and contemporary songwriting of neo-soul, and
you begin to understand where Aria sits.
The supporting
cast is formidable — Chris Montague, Ross Stanley, James Pearson, Tony Remy,
Trish Clowes and Poppy Daniels among them — while Sarah Gillespie is an
important presence throughout the writing and production. But Rectify never
feels like a young singer hiding behind an impressive address book. The
musicians serve the songs and, crucially, Aria remains at the centre of them.
Perhaps the
greatest compliment I can give her is that she appears already to understand
something that isn’t always obvious to singers blessed with very good voices:
having the ability to do something doesn’t mean you always have to do it.
She knows when to
push, when to pull back, when to lean into a lyric and when simply to leave
some space around it.
I thought I had
spotted a versatile young singer during that impromptu set at The Ivy Club.
It turns out I’d
only heard half of it.
Aria may still be
described as one to watch, but Rectify suggests the watching is over - she has
arrived. Glenn Wright
Musicians
Tracks 2,
3, 4, 5, 7, 8
Lead Vocals -
Aria
Keys - William
Hobson
Guitar - Chris
Montague
Bass - Harry
Gould
Drums - Daniel
Hester
Backing Vocals -
Elisha Zion, Siobhan Naomi Prince
Track 1
Lead Vocals -
Aria
Keys - Ross
Stanley
Guitar - Chris
Montague
Bass - Tom Farmer
Drums - Joel
Barford
Backing Vocals -
Elisha Zion, Siobhan Naomi Prince
Tracks 6,
9
Lead vocals -
Aria
Keys - James
Pearson
Guitar - Tony
Remy
Bass - Loz
Garratt
Drums - Daniel
Hester
Backing Vocals -
Elisha Zion, Siobhan Naomi Prince, Lauren Marie Fretwell
Trumpet - Poppy
Daniels (Tracks 2, 4, 8)
Saxophone - Trish
Clowes (Tracks 2, 4)
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