Lauren Maria

*100 copies limited edition* 'You're Beautiful' is the fantastical album of Berlin-based artist Laurén Maria. Part singer-songwriter ballads, part experimental collages, part poignant distortion-laden anthems, the album is like a journey of strange encounters in a mysterious woodland. Maria's mystical voice is our companion on this adventure, sometimes vulnerable, front and centre, at other times heavily processed and part of the fabric of the forest. On songs like "Zephyr" featuring Ludwig Wandinger, its imperceptible echoes, whispers and sighs add a layer of strangeness and magic, whereas on the incredible title track it carries the emotional strength of raw honesty. In other places, like the beautiful "Open Skies In And Draw Me", it's as if veiled, emanating from a misty clearing at dawn. It's a deeply mesmeric record of stark contrasts, as Maria dreams up a reality with its own logic, only for you to wake up once the last echoes of the twinkling piano of the closing lullaby "Weater Wet" disappear, blinking confusedly; I need to go back and yes, you're beautiful.