Flora Smith sounds like a character out of Coronation Street but I assure you she’s Swedish through and through; a Stockholm girl that wrote the first draft of this debut single, ‘Thinking of you’ four years ago when she was 17.
She recorded it in the spring and that is how she came to be signed to the COMEDIA label, which is at the cutting edge of discovering new talent in Sweden.
Having begun to sing and play guitar and piano at the age of 10 her inspiration now comes from The Beatles, Amy Winehouse and even silky jazz trumpeter/vocalist Chet Baker amongst a mix of pop, jazz, and soul influences.
She says, “The lyrics are about being in love with someone who is already in a relationship. An agonising feeling – a heartbreak that almost hurts more than a breakup. There is something especially heartbreaking about thinking about what could have been.”
Interesting, it’s a subject you might think would prompt a lot of songs but I can’t think of any offhand. Perhaps I need to get out more.
I certainly hear Amy Winehouse in this mix. It’s the sort of thing the Camden girl excelled at, drowning in a soul filled groove and with a vocal tone that sounds slightly under the weather. Not from illness, or medication, but from despair.
Others will hear Sade and an amalgam of the two possibly sums her up quite well.
The only difficulty I have is that this sort of vocalisation often (and this especially applied to Winehouse) results in lyrics that can be difficult to pick out and when your songs are lyrically rather than musically dependent that can work against you. But I’m confident that can easily be rectified.
She certainly is a talent and I look forward to hearing what she fashions next. There are several more singles promised for 2025 on the COMEDIA label.
The song was recorded together with Otta Bäccman (bass) and Ruben Bergengren (drums).
Find her on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/flora.smith.37625
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/florassmith/
