Jessica Hoop, Barbican, 19 February 2013

Jessica played an interesting and engagingset. After opening with an arresting ‘DNR’, shesang a song about teaching her mother to smoke pot when suffering cancer, whichhad an interesting, and bass-heavy, arrangement with cross-cutting backingvocals.

She also told a story about meeting a manon a beach whom she tried to encourage to swim in sea, but he said he couldn’tbecause he was born with his heart outside his ribcage - it literally was andJesssica felt it. She then wondered what his name was, and whether he was stillalive.

Her vocals brought to mind Suzanne Vega orEdie Bricknell. The whole sound she and the band made was not something anyoneBritish could do convincingly. So, even though she now lives in Manchester,she’s certainly not lost her US touch.