A full 12 years on from her debut single, the prevailing narrative of Birdy as a folk-pop prodigy is in desperate need of an update. Now 27, the Hampshire singer-songwriter born Jasmine van den Bogaerde not only released her fifth studio album last week, but with it she stepped away from the stripped-back sound that has already earned her upwards of five billion streams.
Billed as a “liberated leap into the unknown”, Portraits sees Birdy swapping the intimate, Laurel Canyon-stylings of her last LP for 80s-inspired sophisti-pop, featuring some of the biggest choruses of her career. Indeed, at last night’s intimate launch party in Dalston she told fans, “The last album was emotionally intense and this time I just wanted to make something we could dance to.”
