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“Music is my home” claims Cris Tanzi on this album’s title track. And judging by the stylishly laid-back tuneage here, it’s a pretty cool home with invitingly crumpled leather sofas, reclaimed draught excluders, corduroy lava lamps and real wood lampshades. Italian-born, London-based Cris lays sweetly soulful vocal over a variety of flighty harmonies, earthy basslines and seductive acoustic guitar tapestries. It’s folk music gone way cool, my friend.
The opening “Enough” comes on like Portishead in big chunky-knit jumpers as the spaced-out vibe is cosseted in loose beats and laid-back acoustic guitar. Cris’s voice is equally seductive as it meanders in from somewhere husky in between Bjork and Kate Bush. Indeed, there’s a touch of the latter’s experimental leotard on the slightly bumpier ride that is “The Storm” and things go from cosy to creepy on the noir-ish drama of “Edges”.
For the most part, though, this is uplifting stuff that escapes without a whiff of cheese. “Cherish U” does lush with limited means as fuzzboxes and effects pile on the lo-fi romance. “New Shoes” and “Little Light” are even more sweeping, while it’s hard not to smile at the quirky jazz pixie that’s conjured up by the confidence-boosting “I Am Great”. Finally, all the stops come out on the euphoric “Time To Leave”. Like an unexpected compliment or an early bus, ‘My Home’ is an album that makes your day feel quite a bit better.