CD: Florence Joelle - Kiss of Fire

I never thought I’d find myself saying that a French female vocalist reminded me of Howard Devoto. But there we are, what can you do? There’s just something in the way she sings the verses of “Hell be Damned and Look Out”: the pauses between words (“Let’s face it… you may only live… once”); the way the last note (word) of the line just kind of hangs there, emotionally ambiguous and philosophically inscrutable. But Florence Joelle also has the sensuous purr of a French Marilyn Monroe. So whichever way you look at it, you’ve got to sit up and take notice.

Recorded straight to analogue tape, the fire-glow warmth of the sound complements the breathy detached uniqueness of the vocalist, as do the walking double bass lines, scratchy tremoloed guitar and crisply functional drumming. One can hear the arch longing of the chanson, the swirling reefer smoke of bar-room jazz, and the youthful rebel drive of rockabilly, all fused together so you can’t see the join, on this short but bittersweet album.

Two carefully chosen cover versions – “When I Get Low I Get High” and “Unchain my Heart” – fit perfectly into this modest 10-song set, serving to both demonstrate that Joelle’s own songs measure up, and that she can make standards her own just by being herself. The nearest comparison in the shiny world of pop would be Imelda May. But her album wears thin after just one play, partly because its digital sheen just wears you down with its sonic linearity. So, the two-track analogue gambit pays off, because if you’re going to revisit all this mid-20th-century music it’s got to be griddle-seared rather than microwaved. Kiss of Fire is just that: the tenderness with the heat, and the sensuality with the danger. Smokin’!

• Find Kiss of Fire on Amazon