(Self-released)Singer Emma Morton brings an indie-girl chorister’s brightness to this captivating debut album, on songs with hints of darkness that sound ages-oldSairie’s debut album begins at this transitional time of year, its glistening psych-folk easing us out of the summer heat towards the coming darkness. In its Pentangle-like opener Song for the Winter, birds’ voices “climb higher”, hills “glow brighter” and waves “call out louder”, and the songs that follow are similarly saturated with colour and energy, creating an intensity that gradually reveals its perils.Based in Brighton, Sairie have released a stack of captivating singles and EPs since 2019, spanning folk, originals and modern covers; one great double A-side released earlier in the year had singer Emma Morton master the ballad May Carol and Françoise Hardy’s Tous Les Garçons et Les Filles. Her tone hooks an 80s indie-pop choirgirl-like brightness in tracks like Harder Than It Seemed, bolstered by Andy Thomas’s meaty bass, and makes you realise this style might have its roots in folk singers such as Maddy Pryor. It also channels the twisted beauty of Josephine Foster on songs such as The Breeze on the Meadow, where a wasp-like drone from Jon Griffin’s harmonium, Maria Marzaioli’s violin and Alice Eldridge’s cello amplifies hints of strangeness. Continue reading...