The world could use a few more Esmé Pattersons. On her last outing, 2014’s Woman To Woman, the Denver songwriter built a record around one simple concept: the right-to-reply of some of pop’s most iconic (yet slandered) female characters, from Billie Jean to Jolene. It’s one of those ideas that’s so simple and radical at the same time, you immediately wonder how it hadn’t already been done to death. Supposedly, the whole thing was recorded in a day. For new record We Were Wild, Patterson’s own voice returns to centre stage, and the results carry an insidious charm of their own.
Matthew Neale 