Defoe - Too Soon to Cry (2019)

When child musical prodigies are concerned, usually the first thing that comes to mind is either a real kid doing some form of commercial pop or the same kid, all grown up - doing some form of commercial pop.

Judging by her PR biography Defoe, who just came up with her debut album Too Soon To Cry is one of those child prodigies. She got her first piano at 2 and actually started recording at 9, and her first recording was published in the Philippines when she was 13.

Without hearing a note from her album, the immediate reaction might be the one connected to other child musical prodigies. In many ways you could file Too Soon To Cry as some pop, one way or the other. But then, you could not, unless David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti were looking for another voice to replace Julee Cruise for another installment of Twin Peaks if that ever happens.

On her debut here, Defoe decided to pick from 100 of songs she had stashed somewhere, and she did pick right! Musical experience and maturity show, as does the fact that as somebody who graduated from LA's Musician’s Institute for Music Engineering she knows exactly what she wants her sound to be.

And her sound is an amalgam of those late Fifties, early Sixties female crooners like Patsy Cline and Connie Francis, mixed with prime Motown sounds, like the exemplary single "In Other Words" shows. The instrumentation always includes something you might not expect to be there, with some intricate production elements, like on the closing of "Ocean". And the Lynch/Badalamenti connection does have its merits as three of the songs here were written for Dylan Reynolds' horror slasher 420 Massacre. And like with the Badalamenti/Cruise combination that might just slip you by, unless you pay closer attention.