Apricot Princess

Alex O’Connor’s 2017 debut is a work of remarkable maturity, but loaded with the blunt honesty of a teenager. His lyrics are candid confessions (“Untitled”) set to floaty jazz chords (“Waiting Room”) and florid soul grooves that betray a colourful musical imagination, as in the bossa-nova glee of “Apricot Princess”. Always on the move, his strange, unfolding song constructions, such as “Television / so Far so Good”, contain nimble and seamless leaps from rolling rock to chamber pop, with occasional rap interludes.