Maggie Rogers

★★★ Heard It In A Past Life POLYDOR. CD/DL/LP

Hotly-anticipated debut from Next Big Thing. Margaret Debay Rogers, 23, is a gifted singersongwriter from Easton, Maryland. At college she assembled collections mixing frank, heartfelt lyrics with banjo-driven folktronica; then, during a masterclass, Pharrell Williams heard her haunting song Alaska and was moved to tears. A clip of his reaction went viral, Rogers was signed, and a juggernaut of expectations is now riding on Heard It In A Past Life. And much of what’s here is astonishing. Alaska, with its lilting, tropical beat, angelic falsetto harmony and Björkstyle earnestness (“Cut my hair so I could rock back and forth/ Without thinking of you”) stops you in your tracks. Past Life – bone-dry piano and mesmeric Joan Osborne defiance – is wonderful. Elsewhere, though, a clubby Eurobeat with tinny snare, effects and repetition too often turns beauty to mulch. The whole thing is deeply marketable – but there’s an authenticity in Rogers that needs more space to breathe.