This one was a gift from David (Christmas-related), and listening to the album, it occurred to me that he was on pretty safe ground in choosing it for me, given my definite fondness for fey, somewhat precious, eccentric female singer-songwriters such as Torrini. A'course, that doesn't diminish the pleasure I've taken in allowing Fisherman's Woman to weave its delicate way into my life in the slightest - it's a very lovely, hushed, unobtrusively pretty record which drifts gently along on its own path, and damnit, this is the sort of thing that I like.
Opener "Nothing Brings Me Down" is the prettiest song on the record, and probably my favourite. But really all of the songs are at least nice, and most are considerably more than that in their cascading, poetic flowerings; for all of its simplicity of construction, the whole album really rewards careful, headphones-while-doing-nothing-else-in-a-dark-room listening. It kind of puts me in mind of The Last Beautiful Day in its gently shimmery music-box vibe, though sparer in its instrumentation and just generally more stripped back; creates a similar sort of mood to outfits like Azure Ray and Hem (quiet, thoughtful, and edged with melancholy without being overwhelmingly downbeat), but musically has more in common with, say, a more acoustic guitar-oriented Björk or Múm at their most restrained. It's actually really difficult to describe or pin down the actual sound of Fisherman's Woman, which is, I guess, a sign of originality - and, most importantly, it all works.
