Good Or Shit: Delilah And The Dangers Of Googling

One of the great things about Googling shit is the way one search leads to another. The way Google's somewhat spooky omnipresence takes into account (quite literally) everything you search and then proceeds to suggest things you may be interested in. The way you start at looking up True Blood and end at 'vampire porn'. It's a great big cyber adventure - travel in your chair.

I don't remember what I was searching for twelve months ago when YouTube suggested I might like a UK singer/songwriter going by the name Delilah. The track - Go - was a reworking of Rufus and Chaka Khan hit Ain't Nobody. By reworking I mean that part of the original has been reworked with newly self-written material over music that traverses soul and dub step. It's slow, it's sexy, and it's dangerous. Thanks, YouTube, loved it. Naturally I wanted more and I proceeded to follow the artist, downloading two EP's and a mixtape as they were dribbled throughout the year on iTunes and, in the case of the mixtape, as a free download from her website. I actually signed to her mailing list so I could get whatever she dished out to her fans for my greedy little ears. Finally the album was released (in the UK, not quite sure how I managed to get it) and while I was disappointed to find that all the previous EP tracks were on there, she did offer a discount to those who had bought the EPs, which I thought was very civilised, and it did nothing to stop me enjoying every single track.

Delilah was born in France as Paloma Stoecker and raised in London's Hackney - this alone could be seen to explain how she is as refined as she is rough cut. Stunningly beautiful, fashionably alternative, fierce female, vulnerable young woman. It's all there, in her look and her sound. This is pop music but not of the standard we are becoming used to, where everything seems to be either a kind of lightweight techno or r'n'b ballads that are hard to discern from each other, or a mixture of both.  This is dub step, drum 'n' bass, r'n'b, soul and acoustic. There are dancefloor burners and there are tunes to weep to and there is the occasional happy-love-time song that would sit perfectly on the soundtrack to a movie with Jennifer Aniston in it - and probably best played right about the time she realises she's loved Owen Wilson all along. And Go is not the only impressive reworking of another musician's song (FYI apparently Khan has heard this track and loves it), Love You So is a re-imagining of Finley Quaye's Even After All (there's a great Joe Goddard remix of this tune on Delilah mixtape 2-4 am) and there is an intense cover of Minnie Riperton's Inside My Love. Perhaps what stands out about Delilah's re-creations is that she makes them her own - they don't sound like the originals.

Chase & Status fans will already know Delilah. She's accompanied them on most of their recent tours and collaborated with them on track Time - a song which did very little for me. But I doubt it will be long before everyone catches on to this young woman. I recently found myself in a situation where I was surrounded by people whose music tastes ranged from the hip hop-obsessive to the cheesy pop-monger. I produced Delilah''s debut album From The Roots Up and everyone was blown away.They all went off to start Googling her. I wonder where they ended up...