After leaving the Los Angeles based indie outfit the Wild Colonials, the Glaswegian singer and songwriter Angela McCluskey struck out on her own to release her solo debut, the Nathan Larson- produced THE THINGS WE DO, for Manhattan Records in the spring of 2004. That same year, she scored a surprise hit with the song “Breathe,” a collaboration with the French electro-pop group Telepopmusik, that gained wide exposure thanks to its use in a television commercial. Though McCluskey possesses a smoky vocal tone that has frequently been compared to Beth Orton’s, her brand of extroverted pop is far removed from Orton’s often gloomy, jazz-inflected trip-hop.