(Groomsmen status unknown.)
[Video]
[6.42]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: A bleary-eyed Saturday a few weeks back, a Facebook friend threw “She” up on his wall, deeming it “Saturday morning perfection.” After one playI had woken up a whole lot, uplifted although I hadn’t been paying much attention(it’s the near-wordless multitracked vocals near the end that did it for me). Like Michael Kiwanuka — he of last year’s BBC poll shortlist — Mvula eschews all elements that may clutter or cause detriment to the song. It’s instantaneous pleasure-centre songwriting. But there’s more: on “She,” our narrator floats above her characters, simply observing, avoiding any judgement of the tragedy inherent in her subject’s life. She may be on to something.
[7]
Pete Baran: It’s clear where the appeal of Laura Mvula is: her clean Nina Simone-esque delivery. “She” is a nice showcase for the voice but does feel a touch like it is squarely aimed at a demographic rather than the song she really wants to sing. The percussion in the back end of the track leaves a good impression, but it’s a little gentle to blow me away.
[5]
Jer Fairall: Glassy Thomas Newman-like rings compliment an Adele-like vocal that is more graceful than most, but the song still requires the voice to do too much heavy lifting, layering choral harmonies and a tasteful strings on top of each other with a force that reveals a lack of confidence on the part of someone involved. Mvula, for her part, performs with such easy conviction to suggest that any failure of nerve was unlikely to be hers.
[5]
Anthony Easton: She has a lovely voice, the writing is fantastic, and I really hope that’s a gamelan, but the whole production seems to be suited for being safe and polite enough to play on CBC at 3:30 on a Monday.
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: Music for montages of flurries, or perhaps Lucy Pevensie’s headphones: wintry, with a didactic air. Everything has such a light footfall.
[6]
Doug Robertson: It starts off deceptively dull, but as the tattoo builds and the rat-a-tat of elements grow and combine, a delicate multi-layered tapestry comes together in an awkward beauty that dangles the promise of greater things ahead. Sadly, this doesn’t last; someone pulls on a thread and the whole thing collapses, returning once again to the obvious simplicity we started out with, only now there’s a jumbled pile of possibilities falling intriguingly onto the floor.
[6]
Iain Mew: I almost put this down as relaxingly boring, which I feel bad about. It turns out that it builds from sleepy into something really stirring! The best thing, though, is the ending, which I didn’t even notice until a few listens in. The song ends with a fadeout as Mvula sings “She wondered if there’s a way out of the blue/Who’s going to take her home this time?”. Except it’s not really a fadeout, because the only thing that gets quieter is her voice. The music doesn’t fade out at all but carries on peacefully at the same level. For something so subtle, it’s really affecting, like her vanishing provides the answer to the question.
[8]
Brad Shoup: She’s deliberately creating segments with sharp breaks; it’s a little herky-jerky, but the pieces are nice and wintry enough. Each part is savored as its own course until that rousing choral finale. Think Sufjan Stevens arranging Laurie Anderson.
[6]
Will Adams: The alternation between the twinkling vibraphones and full-on choral ensemble is so beautiful that it renders the extra instrumentation toward the end unnecessary. The drums, especially, take away from the mysterious meter (it ends up being 6/4, but you can also hear it as a faster 9/4), not to mention Laura Mvula’s stately vocals.
[6]
Alfred Soto: Cresting as a mix between Joni Mitchell’s “Shadows and Light” and Godley & Creme, it picks up a pulse with the addition of snare drums before flatlining again. One of the rare songs that deserves a longer length.
[6]
Ian Mathers: I’m not sure why, but for much of my first listen here part of me kept trying to intellectualize away the fact that I’m actually quite moved by “She.” Maybe I’m moved for the wrong reasons, whatever that would be, but the structure, the lyrics, the gorgeous vocals… it feels like there’s something sacred here.
[9]
John Seroff: It’s a strange feeling when the first song you hear by an artist you’re drawn to is one that doesn’t really find the mark; I consider the rest of Laura Mvula’s impressive debut EP (particularly “Like the Morning Dew“) to be much stronger material than the single. ‘She’ is a bit over-heavy on the Macy Gray school of self-help lyricism for my taste, but I am nevertheless taken by the strength and flexibility of Mvula’s songwriting and musicianship, the fully-fleshed vocals and composition. A choir provides the listener time to ponder the chanteuse exploring a childlike melody until, driven by drums, there’s a convergence into something more urgent and upright, something both at and from the heart. Winehouse and Simone are the obvious analogues, though best to temper any expectations on your first spin: you’ll taste only a dollop of the honey of greatness today. The hive could come in time.
[7]