Richard Julian

Girls Need AttentionCompass Music ***

New York-based singer-songwriter Richard Julian's fourth album takes a little time to work its magic but, once under its spell, there is much to admire in his tangled tales of love's torrid harvest. Julian played in Norah Jones's side project, The Little Willies, and this album was recorded in Jones's studio and is produced by Jones's ex, bassist Lee Alexander.

Julian's songs are thoughtful, humorous and emotionally charged, as exemplified by an inviting hat-trick of successive tracks, Lost in Your Light, Girls Need Attentionand World We Made. His type of territory ensures the one cover, Randy Newman's slice of dirty realism, Wedding in Cherokee County, sounds perfectly at home. Arrangements are stripped back and deceptively loose - with angled electric guitar (Wilco's Nels Cline), skittish ukulele and tuba colouring the more conventional line-up.

See richardjulianmusic.com

Download tracks: Girls Need Attention, Lost in Your Light