Simone Felice
The Projector
(New York Pro)
★★★★

THOSE who have followed the Catskills-born Simone Felice from his days with The Felice Brothers and then The Duke & The King will know he is a hugely talented singer-songwriter.

His new record, full of affecting and often stripped-back ballads, is further proof of his brilliance. Gone is the soul influence of his previous work, replaced by more stately songs like the title track, with its talk of bugged phones and toasters in baths and a huge chorus supplied by Natasha Khan of Bat For Lashes.

Hustler has something of Nic Jones’s The Jukebox As She Turned about it, while the strained domesticity on Your Hands echoes the high emotions of fellow Americana songster John Murry.