Californian-turned-Mancunian Jesca Hoop calls the microphone "my favourite instrument in the world" and when you hear the way the she can use, even manipulate, that instrument – well beyond softer or louder, closer or further away - it makes perfect sense. In songs that cross from art rock and indie pop to something nearer one of her early mentors Tom Waits (whose children she looked after for a while) and even the life affirming closeness in the work of friends, supporters a

Californian-turned-Mancunian Jesca Hoop calls the microphone "my favourite instrument in the world" and when you hear the way the she can use, even manipulate, that instrument – well beyond softer or louder, closer or further away - it makes perfect sense. In songs that cross from art rock and indie pop to something nearer one of her early mentors Tom Waits (whose children she looked after for a while) and even the life affirming closeness in the work of friends, supporters a

JESCA HOOP Memories Are Now (Sub Pop) A lot of the time on Memories Are Now Jesca Hoop uses very little really to embellish her singing, which might be considered a brave call. The album’s opener, Memories Are Now, seems to exist on a diet of low ride guitar, a splash of percussion and a fluctuating rhythm that keeps you off balance. The following track (and pretty much the pick of an album not short of good material), The Lost Sky has acoustic guitar picked out over intermit