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.
He’s one of the musicians who coaxed Thompson back towards music after life got in the way; she also drums with Guinean singer Falle Nioke, and recorded Something True with guitarist John Atterbury, cellist Hannah Miller and DePlume. Community is another of the EP’s footholds, offering not just a bulwark against solitude but the potential for transcendence: “Look up at the stars and moon,” Thompson sings. “Somewhere that we’ll be free.”
• Something True will be released on PRAH on 22 July
