Essie Jain - We Made This Ourselves

We Made This Ourselves is the debut album of Essie Jain, a 29-year-old English transplant living in New York City. Jain makes beautiful and melancholy folk songs and strips them down to their bare essentials, of which Glory is nothing but slowly picked acoustic guitar, splashes of shimmering electric guitar, and Jain's regal voice slight quavering. Haze is particularly lovely, as Jain harmonizes with herself over a soft piano line that evokes an autumnal stroll through Central Park. Indefinable brings Jain's vocals to the front of the mix as the waver intensifies and comparisons to Vashti Bunyan suddenly become inescapable. We Made This Ourselves is a pill that goes down smooth and easily. It's skillfully realized and enjoyable throughout though, ultimately, it doesn't quite stand out enough from all the car advert minimal folk songs in the world to be truly memorable. [Tobias Kahn]