Rumer Launches Seasons Of My Soul With Intimate Gig

Walking into the Notting Hill venue, an old converted church with a Romanesque façade famed as a choice venue for the counter culture in the 60s, Rumer’s name was projected on the walls, pirouetting off the floor and doorway as audience members filed into the auditorium.

Calm and poised for the most part (and cool enough to explain a change in the set list with a shrug, “I was doing my hair at the time”), Rumer aka Sarah Joyce who wrote most of the songs on the album was as impressive live as she is on the album.

Working hand in glove with the album’s producer Steve Brown accompanying on keys and Matt Backer to her side adding some classy touches on guitar and dobro, the audience reacted best of all to ‘Slow’ and ‘Aretha’ but warmed as well to ‘Saving Grace’, one of the tracks on the album that definitely grows through repeated listening.

‘Blackbird’ for me is the standout song of the album with its open feel, and in Rumer’s Karen Carpenter-meets-Carole King voice works in an understated way but can be quite moving even after repeated listens. Her voice has a beauty that lends itself to a certain amount of introspection just as King was able to achieve on Tapestry but it is carefully released and never as doomy as say Carpenter’s can be. It was great to hear Laura Nyro’s ‘Stoned Soul Picnic’ after the album tracks, perky and upbeat and on Bacharach and David’s ‘Alfie’ Rumer showed control as well as interpretive maturity taking up the challenge of the difficulty of the song. It will be fascinating to see her develop over the coming months but certainly a new vocal star is born.

– Stephen Graham 

Rumer plays Band on the Wall in Manchester on 14 December