The first thing to strike you about this young songstress from Detroit is the uniqueness of her voice. She’s got a sickly sweet nostalgic twinge that’s a little bit Lykke Li and a retro flair that’s a little bit Paloma Faith and the rest I just can’t place.
Refreshingly, her tracks show the kind of production and instrumentation that other current pop records glimpse at but never fully grasp. Take ‘Choice Notes’ for example, with its plucky piano chords, hand clap percussion and xylophone tinkering. It’s rammed packed with musical entertainment yet it still manages to retain a light happy–go–lucky pop feel.
‘Medicine’, is equally whimsical with layered backing vocals and choral chanting. With lyrics such as “I won’t take my medicine” and ‘so thanks for nothing,’ there’s a nursery rhyme feel to it that adds some playful personality. In contrast, ‘Gimme Heart’ graduates towards more teenage years and is drenched in a school-crush-style cooing that makes you wonder if Winston had cartoon doves fluttering above her whilst in the recording studio.
Normally, the idea of a female singer /songwriter producing theatrical boutique pop would see me run to the hills or at least towards the nearest record collection in search of an auditory antidote. However, in this instance, Alex Winston has won me over and wooed me with her form of picture-perfect pop and shall seek no immunity from it.
‘Choice Notes’ is out now on HeavyRoc.
