Amanda Mair: Amanda Mair – review

Seventeen-year-old Amanda Mair is Swedish, so we can take it as read that she has the pop gene – specifically, the strand that expresses itself as frothy melancholia, a la Robyn and Lykke Li. She's already much blogged-about, perhaps to her detriment: can a teenager who doesn't yet write her own songs live up to comparisons to Kate Bush and Fleetwood Mac ? Maybe she will in years to come, but on this debut she's merely a sweet-voiced muse, singing small, pretty songs with aplomb, but not always mastering them. Writer/producer Philip Ekstrom has done good things with arrangements and production, though – with lush electropop as a foundation, he's built each song into a beautifully ornamented little package, employing Bollywood strings here ( Said and Done ), orchestral pomp there (Sense), with Mair's vocals adding flavouring. The ballad Skinnarviksberget perhaps comes closest to the real her: "I have a bottle of wine and a secret that I like to share with you ... I will wait for you," she sings, sweetly and ardently, sounding like remarkably like a real 17-year-old on the brink of first love.