A sparkling return for Marina
(even without her Diamonds)
MARINA DIAMANDIS was once so hungry for fame that she studied Madonna’s climb to the top and subscribed to entertainment bible The Stage because it was the magazine that launched The Spice Girls.
A solo star who performed as Marina And The Diamonds, she emerged in 2010 and fulfilled her ambitions just two years later when her second album, Electra Heart, topped the charts by mixing bubblegum electronics and break-up tales.
Success didn’t pan out as she expected, though. Despite hitting No. 1, the Welsh- Greek singer from Pandy, near Abergavenny in South Wales, never became a household name. Too enigmatic to be the next Britney Spears, she found herself stuck in the middle, between glossy pop and more credible, indie-orientated styles.
She was also unhappy with her brash public image, and Electra Heart was followed by 2015’s introspective Froot.
She has now ditched the Diamonds to perform simply as Marina, and is taking stock.
‘ i carry along a feel of unease/i want to belong like the birds in the trees,’ she sings on recent single Handmade Heaven. ‘ This life don’t suit me any more.’ Handmade Heaven features on her latest release, Love, an eightsong collection out now that is the first instalment of a two- part project, Love + Fear. The remaining eight tracks are due on April 26 as part of the full Love + Fear package.
Inspired by ‘ a passion for life’, the opening salvo is clearly the cheerful bit.
Upbeat rhythms and melodramatic piano pieces dominate. Marina’s vocals owe a little to the gothic theatrics of Florence Welch. But she also exercises admirable control, hitting the high notes with aplomb on Superstar and capturing a sense of serene euphoria on acoustic dance number Orange Trees.
BABy,
last year’s collaboration with Clean Bandit and Puerto Rican singer Luis Fonsi, also gets a reprise. Enjoy your Life is aimed squarely at the dance floor, while True combines body-positive sentiments with a buoyant melody.
Diamandis, 33, who took a sabbatical from music to study drama, psychology and — more bizarrely — forestry, is now more candid lyrically.
The ballad To Be Human references her father’s roots in a Greek village; and End Of The Earth, all sombre synths, forms an obvious bridge to Love + Fear’s forthcoming second chapter.
Part two will be cut from different cloth, focusing on insecurity and gender imbalance. But, having heard an early copy, I believe it is an excellent sister piece. The onus is on ballads rather than dance, but the overall differences are subtle. Tracks such as Emotional Machine — featuring New Zealand duo Broods — and Life Is Strange will only add heft to Marina’s sparkling return.
NORAH JONES has confounded expectations since becoming the biggest- selling female artist of the Noughties. She’s sung with Dave Grohl and made an LP with dance producer Danger Mouse, before returning to her piano roots with 2016’s Day Breaks.
She’s off on another tangent with this mini-album.
Out today on vinyl, CD and digitally, Begin Again contains a series of impromptu sessions with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, pianist Thomas Bartlett and others. Of its seven tracks, four have seen low-key online releases. The others are new. Norah remains a soulful vocalist. But the New yorker refuses to limit herself.
My Heart Is Full is an electronic piece offering oblique political commentary —‘ Are we broken?’ she asks — against Bartlett’s shimmering keyboards. A Song With No Name is an acoustic folk tune. There’s improvised jazz on the title track, and a throwback to more soothing sounds on Wintertime, a country-soul ballad.
Begin Again feels like a stop-gap, but it gives a classic American artist plenty of scope for her next full album.
MArinA starts a UK tour on April 29 at the O2 Academy, newcastle (livenation.co.uk).