Kelli Ali: Rocking Horse

As Kelli Dayton, this singer fronted trip-hoppers the Sneaker Pimps. Since then, she's adopted her father's surname and found a niche composing leftish-field poptronica. So there was every reason to expect her third solo album to be more of the same. Instead, Ali has done a Goldfrapp, swapping electro-pop for pastoral alt-folk. She started work on Rocking Horse in 2005, so it could not have been much influenced by Goldfrapp's 2008 album Seventh Tree, but the similarities are remarkable, not least in the way that both women have exposed their frail voices with little more than a few cellos for company. Rocking Horse is intermittently enchanting - Flowers is an especially affecting mix of voice and strings - and deserves attention.