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Luke Sital-Singh is a singer-songwriter from New Malden, the south-west London birthplace of John Martyn and Jamie Woon, two other musicians from different generations known for taking folk traditions in unexpected directions. It stands to reason that it should be harder for a solo troubadour to make an impact because they only have their voice and a guitar to do so, but as soon as we heard this 24-year-old artist’s song Fail for You we were knocked out, and it felt as though he was breathing life into a tired form. He made it the lead track on his debut EP, It’s a beauty, and especially impressive in that it approximates the choral sound of Fleet Foxes’ white winter hymnals, only those tremulous voices are presumably all just him, multi-tracked. It’s like hearing a bunch of Neil Young circa After the Goldrush, harmonising together.
He’s a fan of all the people you’d expect, from Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen to Damien Rice and Josh Ritter, but if anything that quavery vibrato and the way he frames it makes us think more than anyone else of Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. You can imagine Sital-Singh taking that sweet and sorrowful falsetto, out of the acoustic folk comfort zone and into other areas: R&B, rap, electronica, wherever. Sometimes, with his husky voice, he can come across as a Generic Sensitive Man. But somehow he manages to pull you back in just as you’re in danger of losing interest.
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