Yael Naim - 'New Soul'
I watched one of those 100 Most Something Somethings clips shows the other night, in which one of the rent-a-gobs was sounding off about the Welsh-language TV soap Pobol Y Cwm. Now, the person in question is Welsh himself, but clearly does not speak the language. He seems to have felt this gave him the right to have a good go at pretending to speak Welsh for the comedy effect, then dismiss the way actors on the show speak to each other as "gibberish", as if Pobol Y Cwm had just made up the Welsh language to annoy him personally. That is simply how loudly ignorance speaks in those sort of shows.
So even though Yael's name (pun intended) reads like an anagram, or mirror-writing, why pretend this is a failing on her part? It's a lovely name, and she's got a very pretty song, full of fun instruments like big oompah brass and a mellotron (that's the flute noise you can hear) and the piano from your local scout hut, and a great big choir of angels at the end.
She clearly has a lot of friends, some of whom carry heavy tubas about, so I'm not going to mess. What I will say for reference help is that Corinne Bailey Rae and Feist seem to have had a musical child, and her temperament is as warm and kooky as you'd imagine.
Come back to me in a year though, and you'll find me on 100 Things We Can Get Moderately Well-Known Celebs To Go 'What Was All THAT About?' About, going "What kind of name is Yael Naim? Was her mum DRUNK??" and mugging into the camera. That's assuming I become moderately well-known in the next 12 months, of course...
Download: Out now
CD Released: March 24th
(Fraser McAlpine)
Comments
Lol loving the Feist/C.B.R. baby image.. She sounds good enough but I'm not particularly keen on the song.. it's pretty indeed, but it listening to it doesn't really give me any kind of satisfaction :P
she's foreign. hence the strange name. israeli actually. and its a very israeli name. YAEL. naim im sure is common there. too. her mum wasnt "drunk".
[I know. You see that whole first paragraph about the Welsh language? That's me saying I know, in a roundabout way. Honest! - Fraser]