Michael Cragg 

Jones: New Skin review – elegant soul/pop hybrid

(37 Adventures)
  
  

East London’s ‘supple-voiced’ Jones.
East London’s ‘supple-voiced’ Jones. Photograph: PR Company Handout

As with Jessie Ware, east Londoner Jones makes a soul/pop hybrid that elegantly walks the line between unselfconscious cool and dinner party MOR. Early single Indulge, for example, is all spacious, delicate electronics augmented by Jones’s caramel voice, while the likes of Melt and Wild aim straight for the heart of Radio 2. That’s no insult, obviously, and New Skin covers both bases with an effortlessness that belies the fact it’s her debut. It helps, too, that her supple voice is just as happy zipping between the cascading beats of Hoops as it is on the fragile Lonely Cry. Occasionally you wish she’d untether her emotions a bit more, but it’s the subtle pull that slowly intoxicates.

 

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