Helena Jesele - Sweet Sticky Fix
by John Clarkson
published: 27 / 2 / 2013
Label:
World6
Format: CD
intro
Fantastic debut album from retro-influenced Dublin-born, but now London-based singer-songwriter Helena Jesele
Even at the end of what has obviously been a bad night, and carrying her high-heeled shoes sling-shot in her hand, Helena Jesele is an elegant and a classy figure as she struts defiantly up the road on the front cover sleeve of her debut album, 'Sweet Sticky Fix'. That sense of style extends to the album itself which, all washes of smouldering brass and tingling strings, takes its influences from 50's and 60's soul jazz, and the holy trio of Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone. Jesele draws inevitable comparisons with Amy Winehouse with her retro sound. It is a fair, if however obvious likeness as Jesele also has a similar sultriness in her vocals, and Paul O' Duffy, who co-produced the album, also worked with Winehouse. While she nods openly at her influences, one, however, never feels with Jesele that she is simply just ripping her favourite artists off. She brings her own stamp of personality to 'Sweet Sticky Fix', which tells of two years in the now London-based Dubliner's life and convincingly tightrope walks a balance, often in the same line of lyric, between heart-wrenching poignancy and self-lacerating humour. The brash ‘Let the Game Begin’ finds herself dusting herself down after another romantic let-down, and responding by going out on the pull (“Wonder Woman is out again/Woken up from another disappointing man”). The melancholic ‘Lovesick Avenue’ updates Elvis’s ‘Heartbreak Avenue’ with its chorus (“Welcome to Lovesick Avenue/It’s on the corner of Unrequired and Heartache”), while the title track captures the passion, but also the faint awkwardness of a first sexual encounter (“Show me yours/And I’ll show you mine”). By the halfway point of ‘Sweet Sticky Fix’, one is left wondering if Jesele has anything else to sing about than her admittingly rather colourful love life. Only ‘Pretty Pretty Lights’, about a trip to New York and her disorientation at being somewhere unknown, offers something different (“Pretty, pretty lights freaking me out”). Even here, however, as the next track ‘Girl in London’, reveals, this has resulted in another disastrous love affair, this time with someone already involved (“It’s just your girl from London calling/I know that I said I wouldn’t/But I have been climbing up the walls without you”). Her blunt honesty and her self-mockery at her own neediness, however, carry ‘Sweet Sticky Fix’ through. It also turns out to be an album about self-discovery. The penultimate track, ‘Higher Mountains’ finds Jesele, wearying of her own clinginess and knowing that she can do better walking out on a man who has mucked around too many times (“Think I am going to walk away/Show my love a better way/I’ve got higher mountains to climb”). On the last song, the jubilant and upbeat ‘Sun is Rising’, Jesele has started another new and tentatively hopeful romance, but also now knows that ultimately she has to rely on herself rather than anyone else to find happiness (“Leaving my past behind/Breathing in something new/I’ll break every chain that has tied me down/That’s what I am going to do/Waving that ghost behind/Looking for bluer skies/All that was lost has now has been found”). ‘Sweet Sticky Fix’ is an intense, but exhilarating and rewarding album from a highly promising new act.
Track Listing:-
1 Breathe In Love2 Let the Game Begin
3 Lovesick Avenue
4 Sweet Sticky Fix
5 Angel Save Me
6 Pretty Pretty Lights
7 Girl In London
8 Smash My Heart
9 Higher Mountains
10 Sun Is Rising
Band Links:-
https://www.facebook.com/helenajeselemusichttps://twitter.com/helenajesele
soundcloud
most viewed articles
current edition
In Dreams Begin Responsibilities - #15- On Being Dignified and Old aka Ten Tips From Jah Wobble On How To Be Happy.Doug Dillard Expedition - Live At The Hotel Fremont, Las Vegas, September 1970
Beat Featuring Ranking Jnr - Sala Jerusalem, Valencia, 18/2/2024
Simon Heavisides - Destiny Stopped Screaming: The Life and Times of Adrian Borland
The Church - Interview with Steve Kilbey
Sami Sumner - Interview
Starless - Interview
Near Jazz Experience - Interview
Editorial - May 2024
Dodson and Fogg - Movement In The Exterior World/Music For Strange and Mysterious Stories
most viewed reviews
current edition
David Cross Band - Ice Blue Silver SkyTy Segall - Three Bells
Hillbilly Moon Explosion - Back in Time
Lewis 'Burner' Pugh - Bullets for Bread
Smalltown Tigers - Crush On You
Pearl Jam - Dark Matter
Kula Shaker - Natural Magick
Ian Hunter - Defiance Part 2: Fiction
Sami Galbi - Dakchi Hani
Burial - Dreamfear
Pennyblackmusic Regular Contributors
Adrian Janes
Amanda J. Window
Andrew Twambley
Anthony Dhanendran
Benjamin Howarth
Cila Warncke
Daniel Cressey
Darren Aston
Dastardly
Dave Goodwin
Denzil Watson
Dominic B. Simpson
Eoghan Lyng
Fiona Hutchings
Harry Sherriff
Helen Tipping
Jamie Rowland
John Clarkson
Julie Cruickshank
Kimberly Bright
Lisa Torem
Maarten Schiethart