(from beat-sketching, July '03) / home / reviews index
Emma Rugg - 'Isolated Impression'
(self-released LP)
The sound on this album is at times so emotionally bare that it's almost
hard to listen to. Emma Rugg's first album of soft, melancholy folk-pop,
financed through busking in Hull city centre, succeeds in being not
just impressive but touching. Even in its traditional form and slow
pace it feels really fresh; just a keening voice, and understated acoustic
guitar picking. It makes me think of a restrained Cranberries drinking
vaguely from the same cup of inspiration as the delgados; but how the
simple drawings on the sleeve show Emma cradling her guitar give a description
that doesn't need to be bettered.
