Folk, Jazz and indie influences knit together with surprising cohesion on this the debut album by singer-songwriter Joe Wilkes. The entire album offers up a striking mélange of tones and textures in true ‘it shouldn’t work but…’ style. The CD’s real mark of distinction lies in the interweaving of these elements with rich woodwind and string arrangements. Opener Spotlight introduces the indefinable exoticism which hovers around many of these tracks, with a certain mysteriousness conjured by the taut guitar, arresting gypsy-styled strings, enigmatic melody and stylish woodwind parts. The Castle is simpler but equally refined, string lines reduced to a distant, haunting echo and Wilkes’ guitar brought to the fore. A jazz-styled rhythmicality injects a kind of laidback playfulness into Easy Talking, while the suave Too Late Too Pray – a song sporting a carnation in it’s button-hole if ever I heard one – addresses the state of American society in...