Lou Hayter - Private Sunshine - Skint Records

Singer/songwriter/producer/DJ Lou Hayter has been busy been building her own sonic universe, which culminates in the release of her long-awaited debut solo album, “Private Sunshine”. Full to bursting with evocative electro-soul love letters to her home-town of London, alongside addictive disco torch ballads, it’s like early Madonna meeting Mr Fingers or Jam & Lewis producing Jane Birkin – something beautiful and melancholic yet sharply modern and new. An inveterate music maven from an early age, Hayter has worked for seminal labels like Tirk and Output, joined Mercury-nominated New Young Pony Club as their keyboardist, built a stellar reputation as a DJ to the stars (and beyond), hooked up with Air’s quiet genius Jean-Benoît Dunckel and formed the group Tomorrow’s World, and now all roads have led to this, her sparkling debut solo album. When you examine Hayter’s output, from her earliest days in the New Sins with the delightful ‘It Doesn’t Work Like That’, via releases on Tigersushi and the punchy ‘Lights Down’ on Defected, you can see a creative heat map of her development as a songwriter and (both literally and figuratively) as a singer. Her debut album feels like the creative culmination of her musical influences, inspirations and sonic focus. From the woozy, lysergic harmonies of opener “Cherry on Top”, which sound like a beloved old cassette unravelling, to the fizzy, infectious “Cold Feet”, which calls to mind Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam at their most heartworn, to “What’s A Girl To Do” which could be the perfect halcyon 80’s Janet Jackson by way of Pet Shop Boys bop, it is a breath-taking ride. As well as her excellent bad boyfriend songs, there are also two covers on the album, the last single, a reworking of Steely Dan’s ‘Time Out Of Mind’, and ‘Pinball’, originally recorded by Brian Protheroe in 1974. “Private Sunshine” is imbued with an acute pop sensibility, braided with candy-coated synth melodies, Ronseal rhythms and radio-friendly toplines. Time to dive in. Lou Hayter - Private Sunshine is out now digitally via Skint Records with the vinyl album being released on September 24th.