We've been keeping an eye on Eliot for a hot minute (or seven years). She first sprang onto the music scene as a teenager in London fronting the band I Blame Coco, signed at just 17. With her kohl-rimmed, challenging stare she penned songs that blended catchy synth-pop hooks with the occasional reggae inflection. But it was a sonic bent she soon tired of, shrugging off the guise like a casually tossed trench and reclaiming her own much cooler birth name: Eliot Sumner. (And yes, she is Sting's daughter.)The songs she's been drip-drip feeding us since, like the strutting "After Dark" with it's psych-toned keyboard flourishes, or the motorik rhythms of "I Followed You Home" display a new side to Sumner's still burgeoning songwriting. (Noisey's sister site i-D followed the artist on the road with Lykke Li early last year.) Finally her debut album has arrived. Information embraces a pinch of glammy preening "Halfway to Hell" alongside more sensitive songs like "Say Anything You Want to Say." There's a pleasing rigidity to her music (the title track is a case in point), but her idiosyncratic, somewhat androgynous singing voice gives this album an edge. And a heart. Turns out that was her plan all along.Sumner had this to say about the culmination of all her work: “I started writing songs again in 2010 in search of creating music that I wanted to listen to. When I met Duncan Mills who produced the album we bonded over our love for the krautrock movement and agreed to take this approach to making a record. Motorik rhythms and 'wall of sound' was our mission statement. Along with 'you are a robot, you have no feeling,' 'jazz be gone' became mantras in studio leaving all the feeling and human element to the vocals. My favourite track on the album is 'Dead Arms and Dead Legs.' Its lyrically my favorite and the outro still gets me. I really love this album and that’s enough for me.”
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Information is out on 1.22 via Interscope.