It must be the kind of women that I meet but every time I hear the female voice I think of peroxide and her worrying familiarity with knives. Listening to this album by Gemma Garmeson made me realise that there is another sort of woman out there who is, well, nice.
Dryly funny throughout, she muses on life and its many wondrous trivialities. Singing in a near deadpan manner throughout, Ms Garmeson never really seems to get upset about anything. She meets - undoubtedly nice - boys on trains ("Flip Flop"). Likewise her approach to relationships seems so very polite ("Shut Up and Kiss Me"). I suppose the point that I'm trying to make is that she falls into a musical category previously populated with the likes of Victoria Wood and Joyce Grenfell. The understated production reinforces this. It never ever usurps Ms Garmeson's voice and that wry sense of humour.
Even in her serious songs like "Happy Father's Day", she seems just a bit detached. Perhaps self conscious, perhaps a deliberate emotional distance but it leaves a feeling that something is missing and that something is passion.
Ms Garmeson's songs show an astute and perceptive mind is at work but her heart doesn't really seem to figure in it all.