First Transmission: Mabel, My Boy My Town.

As first impressions go, Mabel’s Know Me Better could not have made a more impactful one; the Hype Machine duly, and with that immediately sent into meltdown, as innumerable blogs worldwide caught onto her smouldering début with all the vigour of crumbs to a beard. But, very much evidencing “there’s so much more to love” about Neneh Cherry’s beloved daughter, My Boy My Town is, if that little bit slower still (it lingers in the low sixties, so far as its BPM may be concerned), another that’s seemingly certain to set pulses a-pacin’ once again. A cautionary tale extolling compromise, its choral refrain the straight-up: “Let’s meet in the middle, ’cause we both want a little bit more/ If I waste what you[’ve] given, then I won’t forgive it/ You leave me just wanting it all”, both lyrically and musically, there is an assurance to Mabel that belies her scant years. And, in years to come, we may look back upon these humbler beginnings as some form of sea change; the birth of a bona fide popstrel relying on class, rather than scanty clothing and similarly meagre gift, to get to where they so obviously belong…

My Boy My Town is available now, via Polydor.