“Hela mitt liv har handlat om relationer, det är på det sättet jag definierat mig själv [My whole life has been centered around relationships, they are how I’ve defined myself],” Asha Ali says in an interview on her website. The Ethiopian born musician, now living in Stockholm, Sweden, certainly focuses her self-titled debut around the delicate and shifting nature of human interaction, Ali’s voice drifting with ease along the many musical backdrops and approaches contained therein. ‘Coward Heart’, the album’s opener, recalls stripped down Swedish indie-pop; ‘These Months’ emotes a lost barrenness with its lonely piano hits and atmospheric guitar; and ‘Warm Fronts’ feels like a more mature version of the country/folk/indie sound that Saddle Creek seems especially fond of. Ali’s delivery and the production - empty space and careful layering - hold the record together, though this still doesn’t give the album a great sense of direction. The musicianship and songwriting is strong, but is not always well distributed throughout the album. It does ultimately hold the debut together, and makes it an album worth checking out.

When Asha Ali gets it right - she gets it very right. Even though it dissipates the force of her record, the diversity apparent within it shows how dynamic and poignant a musician she is. ‘These Months’, easily the standout track on the record, darkly builds itself up in whispers of delayed guitars and reverberating piano tones. There is a sense of maturity on that song that is not present on its the following track, ‘Are You Here Soon?’, a ballad-esque number with horns and some brilliant slide guitar. The strange diversion from the eloquence of ‘These Months’ to the lighter ‘Are You Here Soon?’ highlights the main failing of the record: inconsistency in sound, approach, and weight.

Asha Ali’s self-titled debut feels like a mix of two EPs and a few b-sides, which is not a slight towards b-sides - they are often great songs, but you can tell there was a reason they didn’t make the album. There are a number of upbeat songs, a few slower numbers, songs with a full band, others with just a few instruments, and individually the majority of the album’s songs are profound ventures. Once they are strung along like beads into a full album there is a voiceless, schizophrenic quality that is hard to ignore despite the proficient musicianship and Ali’s wonderful voice.

If you have a leaning towards female vocalists, especially ones with a commanding, powerful voice equally at home on Scandinavian indie-pop songs as on alt-country ballads, then this is a record that is worth looking into. There is very little wrong with this album, unfortunately what is wrong leaves the whole feeling less solid than its individual components.