Albums of the week: Dove Ellis, Melody’s Echo Chamber, Tom Smith, Out of/Into

Blizzard

Dove Ellis

(Black Butter/AMF)

The subject of a multi-label signing battle earlier this year, Dove Ellis also enjoyed a recent US tour support slot with the white-hot guitar band of the moment, Geese (frontman Cameron Winter’s gig is reviewed opposite). All sorts of excitement surrounds the Irish musician, which this debut justifies.

The Galway-born, UK-based singer Ellis has a voice that could charm the birds from the trees, and the kind of transported, heady delivery that invites comparisons with Jeff Buckley. The songs are there too – the best of which convey his talents in myriad and sidelong ways, through some brave use of language and expansive arrangements that endeavour to skirt cliche.

Love Is begins with piano and strings. Soon it swells into a kind of chamber folk, then meanders on a multi-speed trajectory while Ellis hammers home his point: “Love is not the antidote to all your problems,” he seethes.

Swooping and swaying just the correct amount, his elastic voice naturally dominates tracks such as When You Tie Your Hair Up, but his band know just when to dial up their presence. Other times Ellis and co play it a little safer and cock their collective ear towards BBC 6 Music airplay, rather than the ineffable. But this is a persuasive start. 

Unclouded

Melody’s Echo Chamber

(Domino)

The nom de chanson of French singer Melody Prochet would serve as an excellent descriptor of her current sound: fourth album proper Unclouded lies very much at the softer end of the dream-pop spectrum, the focus less on guitar effects pedals than Prochet’s Elizabeth Fraser-esque voice and melody-rich songs. It wasn’t always this way: her second album, 2018’s Bon Voyage, was noticeably more challengingly unpredictable – and all the better for it – as she swapped out earlier collaborator Kevin “Tame Impala” Parker for proggy Swedes Reine Fiske and Fredrik Swahn.

Fiske is present again, his guitar enlivening the likes of Memory’s Underground and providing the merest hint of discord on recent single Eyes Closed. Elsewhere, El Michels Affair guests on airy closer Daisy. On one level, it all sounds pleasant enough: each song is beautifully rendered, with drummer (and Madlib collaborator) Malcolm Catto creating constantly interesting rhythms. On another level, however, the cumulative effect of being trapped in this particular echo chamber is quite claustrophobia-inducing: the niceness is so all-enveloping that it feels suffocating. A, and long before it ends, you find yourself wishing for some space in which to breathe. Phil Mongredien

There Is Nothing in the Dark That Isn’t There in the Light

Tom Smith

(Pias)

Tom Smith’s thunderous baritone is usually best enjoyed when set against the savagery of his brood-rock band Editors. Placing it in acoustic soundscapes could be like asking Ian Curtis to sing lullabies to your newborn. Occasionally Smith sounds gruff and unlovely on this first solo outing, but mostly he handles his songs’ manicured fragility carefully, and comes across as engaged and sincere.

Although it’s not a holiday album, like his Funny Looking Angels with Razorlight’s Andy Burrows, there’s a classy Christmas feel throughout. Particularly during Lights of New York City’s sumptuous combination of acoustic guitar, pensive trumpet, bass and piano. And, as the album’s title signals, Smith is more concerned with hopeful aphorisms than wolves of the mind roaming in the night. “You are not alone when you’re lonely” is a mantra of uncertain meaning, but he sells it hard on Deep Dive. Although There Is Nothing in the Dark… can be a little inert at times, power ballad fans will appreciate the phones-aloft crescendos of How Many Times and Life Is for Living. Damien Morris

Motion II

Out of/Into

(Blue Note)

This awkwardly named five piece were originally called the Blue Note Quintet, having been formed to celebrate the 85th anniversary of jazz’s premium label. Halfway through a lengthy US tour they decided their music was too good to squander and entered a studio to make Motion, with this album drawn from the same sessions.

Fears of being served cold second helpings prove groundless: here is the same high-grade playing, built around slick compositions but still glistening with improvisation. The snappy post-bop alto sax of Immanuel Wilkins is a focal point, while Gerald Clayton’s piano provides sumptuous, dreamy moments. Vibraphonist Joel Ross, bassist Matt Brewer and drummer Kendrick Scott complete a line-up full of surprises. At its heart is the music Blue Note issued in the mid-60s when the muscular approach of Coltrane and co had softened into the melodicism of Bobby Hutcherson – often evoked by Ross – and Herbie Hancock, whose 1965 album Maiden Voyage finds artful echoes on Clayton’s Familiar Route. Brothers in Arms and Finding Ways zip along on short solos from a group in which no player is the principal attraction and mutual regard carries the swing; prime Blue Note. Neil Spencer

Despite his Parisian roots, Fred N’Thepe’s music is in thrall to his adopted home of London. As Neue Grafik, the French multi-hyphenate has released a number of EPs and mixtapes since 2018 with tracks including To Peckham Rye and Norwood Junction, as well as an entire mini-LP called Foulden Road, named for the location of the Hackney-based label, studio and jazz social club Total Refreshment Centre. But N’Thepe’s sound is wide-ranging: warm, Fender Rhodes-driven club pumpers one minute, heavy beats the next.

The multi-instrumentalist, composer and band leader has collaborated with many breakout UK jazz stars, such as Nubya Garcia and Emma Jean-Thackray, and nurtures the incoming generation via Orii jam, the twice-weekly improv night he started in 2021. It welcomes musicians of any ability, especially Black and queer creatives, and has created a cosmopolitan ecosystem of players, poets, MCs and DJs.

A forthcoming album, Rachael, offers more surprises. Loosely based on the Blade Runner replicant who believes she’s human, Rachael’s paradox is echoed in strings meeting synths, weaving parallel threads of the Black avant-garde from broken beat to classical. It’s machine music with the unfiltered energy of being recorded – often in one take – on analogue equipment: London, by way of Detroit. These are techno-jazz love songs for the night bus home – and N’Thepe’s boldest artistic statement yet. Kate Hutchinson

Rachael is released on 30 January 2026 via Week-End Records

Photographs by Edith Smith/Diane Sagnier/Ryan McNurney/Niclas Weber