Essie Jain We Made This Ourselves by: Ed Butler Mon:12-May-08 Label: Ba Da Bing Year: 2007 WB rating 66 out of 100

Across decades of popular music, the singer has almost invariably been the focus of the band. Bono is famous. He met the pope. Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton; not so famous – they wrote the theme to Mission: Impossible. People visit Bon Scott’s grave. The very mention of Jeff Buckley tends to send women into paroxysms of knee-shaking posthumous lust. Beth Gibbons is the heart and soul of Portishead’s three albums, despite the magnificence of the music.

But more than this, a great singer can elevate the music they lend their voice to, be it mediocre or wonderful. And British folkster Essie Jain certainly has a stunning set of tonsils. Her soprano workouts sit comfortably alongside other songstresses who, upon first making themselves heard, can stop the heart for a brief moment. But the relevant question is -- as it so often is in cases such as this – is her accompaniment sufficient to do her golden vocal emissions justice?

In short, not quite. We Made This Ourselves, Jain’s debut long-player, is a frustratingly uneven effort. Her multi-tracked vocals, while coalescing into sometimes gorgeous harmony, are often joined by unnecessarily overwrought and densely instrumented backing. Perhaps blame Devendra Banhart, who has managed to popularize excessive eccentricities to the point of saturation in the folk milieu. For it is when Jain dispenses with the superfluous musical devices, and allows her shimmering vibrato to take centre stage that We Made This Ourselves comes into its own, such as on opener and first single ‘Glory’ and ‘Talking’, both stripped bare, gentle picked acoustic guitar tracks.

But the most beautiful voice on Earth will only captivate for so long, before quality music becomes fundamental to supporting it – it’s why there are no a capella albums these days. The beauty is, when Ms Jain is singing, all that is needed to deliver a lovely song is a gentle acoustic, or piano and accordion – and a couple of random kitchen utensils, such as on ‘Disgrace’. Rhythm and melody, as they say.

However, an oft-overlooked rule of making quality albums, as opposed to quality songs, is that the old adage of ‘if you’re on a good thing, stick to it’ applies in the inverse when making a record. By riding out the second half of the album with gentle, sparsely instrumented folkisms, Jain ensures that We Made This Ourselves gradually, and gently, fades into mediocrity. It’s just more of the same. Antony Hegarty understands this. On his seminal I Am a Bird Now from 2005, the man with the voice that can make birds explode in mid-flight through sheer joy decided that, seven tracks into his folk-meets-chamber music excursion, he would insert ‘Fistful of Love’, a shockingly violent tale of domestic violence set to a positively bouncy lounge groove, complete with funky horns. It was a wake-up call that, while not really necessary, ensured the album carried its weight to the very last note. As the final notes of ‘No Mistake’ gently drift away, it’s utterly forgettable. Not because it’s a bad song, but because it’s more of the same. More piano, acoustic guitar, and gorgeous vocals.

Essie Jain does, however, have a new album due out very soon, and it will be instructive to see if, as many folk singers do, she feels the need to broaden her horizons. Adopting some extra instrumentation (and implementing it judiciously), could lend her frankly amazing voice the melodic assistance it deserves.