Family Stereo - The Thread Family Stereo

A clear sense of confidence in restraint radiates out of the debut album from Blake Watt, the London-based singer/songwriter who records as Family Stereo. The pleasure lies in the delicacy of measure on The Thread, an album of folk-tinged and brush-stroked reflections on distance and connection that majors in an evocative kind of narrative economy, suggesting rather than telling its stories. Inviting, dynamic and subtly cinematic, its artfully crafted precision feels like the work of a fast-maturing talent.

The record arrives in the aftermath of a string of prodigious EPs from the 25-year-old Blake, son of Everything but the Girl's Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt. The development from those early works is clear, but it's the kind of evolution that prefers to refine rather than embellish. As Blake says, "I think my writing has been getting more pared-back as I've progressed. I find more and more that simple is better. I love telling a story in the simplest way or conveying a feeling in the simplest way, with not too many frills."