Well, let’s face it Seasons of My Soul was a one-off in 2010. It’s not as if Martyna Wren on The World Can Wait (Wrenegade Records, released on 2 June) wants to replicate what Rumer achieved although there are striking similarities in approach. Yet Wren, who sounds more like Dusty Springfield, but who like Rumer, is a fine songwriter has filled The World Can Wait with memorable pop-jazz songs arranged by pianist John Bowman also on the album within a band that also includes jazz trumpeter Reuben Fowler, and vibes player Ben Lewis.
Smoky voiced, quite low toned but not quite so husky as Dusty or, going further back with more jazz reference, Chris Connor, and vintage, something her whole look identifies with, moody and blue, Wren’s approach is soft singing ideal for a jazz vocal balladeering sensibility and there’s a kind of a Bacharach atmosphere to the settings, especially in the way the trumpet responds to the vocals. Bowman’s approach is different to Steve Brown (the producer and musical director who moulded the Rumer sound): more tea and sympathy perhaps, cello and strings rather than guitar in the background although the trumpet is there in the writing.
‘Since We Met’ is the sort of song you’ll hear any day of the week at a winebar jazz gig when people are leafing through the Real Book on their iPads for lesser spotted standards but the difference here is this is an original that sounds like a standard, an incredibly hard thing to do and something that usually means the material works. Title track ‘The World Can Wait’ is even better, the lyrics merge into an all-pervasive atmosphere and the album as a whole is good at creating mood oh so slowly.
Martyna Wren: out of nowhere
Vibes inform the beginning of ‘Two of a Kind’ and the mood is more jaunty there the curved lines of the inferred samba (the melody draws to mind the rhythmic bounce of ‘Waters of March’). ‘The Little Bird’ again draws Rumer strongly to mind. Yet there’s very little aching sadness to Wren’s voice, she’s more an optimistic singer however melancholic the mood. ‘Anywhere With you’ is catchy, but it’s a little wet (“if you want to sail the seas and never say you’re hard to please”) again the vibes coming through imaginatively-voiced in the introduction: sentimental definitely.
A live version of ‘The Little Bird’
‘Just Another Woman’ begins more darkly with the piano introduction and Wren tries to tap into more of a torch song mood, here recalling the early Bittersweet and Blue style of Gwyneth Herbert a little, and I think this song could lend itself to a stronger treatment opening up for a tenor saxophone solo ideally. The soulful ‘Catch Me If You Can’ initially passed me by but ‘You Don’t Care About Me’ moves more into Peggy Lee territory that works well and ‘A Rainy Day in Spring’ wallows in nostalgia a song that could have been written 50 years ago. Wren seems to have emerged from nowhere. So when you hear The World Can Wait you might just want to keep her voice to yourself for a while as I would guess it won’t be long until anyone switching on the radio will know her name. SG
