Playin' Me [CD]

Cooly G displays the full spectrum of her sound, plummeting from her sometimes melancholy, sometimes romantic songs through to her more menacing, trackier style. The album simultaneously recalls a legacy of black British music, filtering the female pressure and reggae lilt of lovers rock's kitchen sink dramas, the sweet seduction of '80s-flavoured "Quiet Storm" soul, through to sour, bitter-sweet synths, and the polyrhythmic dub decay of early jungle and tough tribal drums. The biggest surprise of the record is Cooly's cover of Coldplay's 'Trouble', making it shiver and bounce with a strange clock-work rhythm and epic techno strings. Concluding the album on the more colourful and heady 'Up In My Head', combining stop start rhythms with intoxicated vocals.