Anne Garner’s new album ‘Trusting A Twirled World’ has been quite a while coming but it is finally complete and I’ve just spent the weekend getting acquainted with the six song collection. It might be more appropriate to say reacquainted, for those that have kept an eye on Anne’s progress via her myspace some of these songs have been around in one form or another for a little while now. So when I looked at the track listing I sat down with the preconception that some of the songs would be familiar revisitations.

That turned out not to be the case. The songs as they appear now are largely evolved creatures. New vocal performances have been laid down, arrangements have been stripped back in places and fleshed out in others and the finished results have a musical maturity and confidence that exceeds the originals.

Anne has always possessed a warm and accomplished vocal style as demonstrated on her previous recordings (notably ‘Magic & Madness’) however this time round there’s a marked progression in her style that’s actually quite difficult to define. The performances are confident and relaxed and have a real sense of identity to them. Something most welcome in an age where the singer/songwriter genre is becoming cluttered with a large number of identikit performers. Its nice to see someone stand out.

Of equal importance to Anne’s vocal delivery are the musical backdrops that frame her work on the album. Production has been handled by James Murray and he has managed to do a fine job in bringing together all the different musical strands into one cohesive whole. As a consequence we have elements of classical, popular, ambient sound and electroacoustic all sat comfortably side by side.

It’s this blend of musical stylings that give the album its own hints of dark magic, even the smallest sounds, the littlest eerie creaks in the background have a place of importance on the recording. These little details often give the whole collection something of a maritime feel, reminiscent of hearing something recorded at sea on an aged galleon. It’s almost like the recording environment has a life of its own around the performers, a lovely quality and something I suspect that would be difficult to achieve as naturally as it occurs here.

‘Trusting A Twirled World’ will be available from Slowcraft Records in early 2011. I throughly recommend it.