Rae Forest Project - The Pleasure Of Ruin

Paula Rae Gibson is a renaissance artist; over the past five years she's been etching out her own musical vision that's an imaginative collusion of her passion for poetry, writing, photography, mixed media and the visual arts as well as the world of European-orientated jazz and improv, alt. rock and electronic pop. She has been described by Time Out Magazine as an existential chanteuse.The new album again titled The Pleasure of Ruin her third for the Babel Label, features a new band The Rae Forest Project, co-led by the electric bassist Mike Flynn, who, as well as being a highly groove-orientated bassist is also well known as a specialist jazz journalist and editor. The distinctive line up of musicians comes from diverse musical fields: the Keith Jarrett-influenced pianist and long term Rae Gibson collaborator Tom Pilling, and the upcoming Berklee-trained innovative Mancunian jazz guitarist Moss Freed.Paula Rae Gibson's half-spoken, wispy yet sensuous vocal marks her out as a highly idiosyncratic artist. It splits into two like having a conversation with herself, an internalised call-and-response. It jumps in register between a rich brooding gothic alto (that's occasionally reminiscent of the ambient electronic-rock diva Alison Goldfrapp), and a soaring yet feathery falsetto, sounding both yearning and inquisitive at the same time.