BMA single review by Vince Leigh

Winter, an intimate experience

The latest from singer-songwriter Gia Ransome is an EP featuring four tracks whose uniformity of sound and approach reflect that of the emerging artist’s thematic concerns of loss, heartbreak, isolation, and devotion.

Despite the various incarnations these heady topics might take, Gia has corralled these states, woven their multiple threads into a haunting through-line, and christened them with an apt title.

Contrasting with Gia’s previous single Boots, an indie blues-rock amalgamation of nocturnal drama and fire, Winter is, although no less alluring, a far more intimate experience.

Gia’s vocal allure comprises its usually celestial appeal. But here, it’s a close-mic deal, creating an intimate, potent connection this makes with the listener. You are the only person Gia is performing to, and the effect is as allconsuming as it is compelling.

Gia, however, is not alone in creating this solo sensation. She is accompanied during various tracks by Charlotte Strong (violins), Brendan Keller-Tuberg (double bass), and Jamie Rea (piano), all adding further beautiful-yet-sombre tones.

Showcasing emotional antennae

Winter showcases Gia’s emotional antennae; the four tracks a distillation of her refined ability to take life encounters—and the hurt and hopelessness they sometimes create—and transform these emotional exposures into a musical coherence, hitting a nerve via the sheer nakedness of the performance, and the melodic designs that help guide them.

The EP’s opener, Thunder in the Night, is a fitting example of this. The frustration and loss tackled in the song find a suitable place amid the descending chord progression of the chorus. The six-eight time feel in the chorus’ melody suggests and evokes a resigned melancholy.

Be Gentle With My Heart, a track that explores the mire and complexities of falling in love following heartbreak, contains similar attributes. Its considered use of harmony and a melodic tilt upwards in the chorus, offers the listener (and, of course, the addressee) a soft warning, replete with historical context.

Gia Ransome’s Winter is a singularly eloquent undertaking. It gifts us all the transformative strength of music’s consoling energy; crystallising the personal into the seductively universal.

You can listen to this EP on Spotify, Youtube Music and Apple Music