To my shame, I have to admit that this is my first encounter with Danish singer Sinne Eeg. Where her most recent album was with the mighty Danish Radio Big Band apparently, here it's just fellow Dane, bassist Thomas Fonnesbæk, and her, in a repeat of their 2015 duo encounter.

Eeg is a genuine jazz singer, quite capable of daring shifts and sure-footed in her vocal adventures. Her control and intonation are perfect, her sound varying from the quite wistful on ‘The Long and Winding Road’, taken slowly, to the resolutely upbeat on ‘Too Close For Comfort’, exultant and lively, her vocal marked by a ‘coolly lustrous tonality’ in the words of our own John Fordham. Seemingly unphased by the absence of any chorded support, she jousts with the bassist, alert or poised, leaning back on his time concept on ‘How Deep Is The Ocean’. She can scat but avoids histrionics, only hinting at Sarah Vaughan's daring, deploying swing when she wants, happy to bed down with the strings [on three tracks] or to romp through a very short version of ‘Just One of Those Things’ or to give ‘Round Midnight’ a subtle reading, before going full tilt at Mingus’ ‘The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines’. Wow!

Fonnesbæk is seen by many locals as the successor to the much-vaunted NHØP and is by no means the junior partner here, deserving and receiving equal billing, his facility, sound, timing and quick wit helping to make this one of the most compelling vocal albums of this or any year, if not the decade.