It can be hard to imagine, but there’s a generation who have no concept of Kate Bush. ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Running Up That Hill’ may be unimpeachable musical pinnacles but they’re also decades old. So when then-teenage Amanda Mair released her self-titled debut album in 2012 to a sea of Bush comparisons, her nonchalant response – ‘I prefer the Spice Girls’ – managed to be both bewildering and unsurprising. Mair’s voice shares a lot of the same qualities as Bush – familiar and intimate, as comfortable ascending scales as it is as a hushed whisper.
‘Wednesday’ is Mair’s first new material in four years and there’s a newfound maturity to it. Essentially a break-up power ballad in the vein of ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, its direct lyrics and resigned delivery tell a bleak story of emotional defeat. The minimal lyrics recall El Perro Del Mar, while the hanging piano chords and reverb-laden electronics echo Imogen Heap and Bat For Lashes. ‘Wednesday’ doesn’t shake off the spectre of Kate Bush – it’s both majestic in its desolate grandeur, and powerful in its confrontational stillness, just like anything from Bush’s own career. But it’s no tribute performance: Mair’s heartbreak feels so specific and personal, it can’t be anybody else’s but her own.
Photo credit: Pressbild
