Vera Blue Essentials

Vera Blue Essentials

Celia Pavey has never been content to stand still creatively. The onetime contestant on The Voice made that abundantly clear when, in 2015, she reinvented herself as Vera Blue and traded sombre folk for a more electronic, production-heavy sound. While elements of her folk background persisted—the acoustic breakdown in early single “Settle,” the fingerpicking that introduces “Fingertips,” and the gliding acoustic guitar work of “Regular Touch”—these days it’s a secondary ingredient, making way for more pronounced dance elements such as the warm bass of “Mended” and the pulsing beats of “Lady Powers.” By 2019’s “The Way That You Love Me” the singer had shape-shifted again, introducing a sleeker, harder edge to her sound that she followed with the polished pop beats of 2020’s “Lie to Me.” For an artist so adept at evolving, it’s not surprising she’s in demand as a guest vocalist, collaborating with artists such as Flume (“My Boo”), Illy (“Papercuts”), and Louis The Child (“Nobody Like You”). Regardless of the setting, Pavey’s voice is a beguiling mix of force and fragility, as capable of powering glitchy EDM (Flume’s “Rushing Back”) as it is channeling heartfelt topics such as the negative effects social media can have on relationships (“Fingertips”), choosing self-love over craving the affection of others (“Regular Touch”), and relationships in decay (“Like I Remember You”).

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