Best known as one of the voices of the mysterious avant-soul outfit Sault, Cleo Sol delivers her second solo album with little context. Three figures grace the cover: Sol, an infant and photo of a young woman on the wall behind. We have to assume that the three are related and that Mother, the sequel to 2020’s Rose in the Dark album, is about those relationships.
Cleopatra Zvezdana Nikolic named herself “Sol” in tribute to her mother’s half-Spanish heritage; her mother’s advice was a presence on the 2019 track Sweet Blue. These 12 new songs pay more tribute to support in hard times, while one of two expansive, eight-minute centrepieces, One Day, vows to “always be there for … my angel, born in June”. Sol is mothered, and mothering.
You suspect this care isn’t confined just to those genetically close. Sol dispenses wider encouragement, analyses of formative memories and entreaties to faith to one and all in her featherlight tones, as producer Inflo weaves orchestral soul-jazz around her. Stevie Wonder is a lodestone here, but Sol sings with a casual, delicate intimacy that can makes Mother feel like you’re intruding on private conversations. It’s a more calm, spacious, inward-looking work than Rose in the Dark.
