The debut EP by Donna Thompson locates the footholds out of dark spots, no matter how small they might seem: hearing a smile in a trusted friend’s voice; getting her braids done at her sister’s; the personal conviction that gets her past fear. On Matchstick, she switches from meditative singing to unfiltered exclamation: “Some days it’s like ‘fuck this shit! In every way, on every level’/ Some days it’s just glorious, innit? And I choose to revel,” she observes, accurately.
Something True does a gripping job of balancing those conflicts. Thompson – drummer, vocalist and a mainstay of Dalston jazz hub Total Refreshment Centre – isn’t afraid of unease: sustained minor brass notes, tremulous, wordless harmonies; the urge to spiral rendered in an alluring sparkle. But there’s also a steady beauty in her songwriting, the sense of someone trying to drop anchor: you feel it intimately in Be With You, where her raw desire for support is reciprocated by a consoling saxophone refrain from TRC affiliate Alabaster DePlume, whom Thompson often accompanies live.
