Sarah Cracknell

A sagacious pop legend once sang, “If you’re gonna do it, do it right”. In Sarah Cracknell’s case, doing it right meant taking just the right amount of time to make her second solo album. Eighteen years in fact. Lipslide - Sarah’s debut - was recorded in the years between Saint Etienne’s electro-folk splice Tiger Bay and the perfectly poised Scando- sound of Good Humor and released in the spring of 1997. Back then, Tony Blair was contemplating the redecoration of No 10 Downing Street and Katrina and the Waves were presenting Britain with its first (and last) Eurovision gong since 1981.

A record out of sorts with the times, Lipslide’s crystal clear, blue-eyed pop was sharp relief to Britpop’s late- period bloat in so much as it existed in its own world. Although poles apart sonically and spiritually, Red Kite offers a similar escape route from the musical landscape of 2015.