I’m not entirely certain where I first encountered Zee Avi. All I know is that I’ve got a couple of Avi tracks in my “shuffle top-rated MP3s” playlist, and when they come on, they skewer me with her beautiful voice, like a young Peggy Lee by way of Bjork. Today, “No Christmas For Me” shuffled into my headphones and I sat transfixed by that angelic voice. It literally froze me where I sat. I’m on the road in the USA, which makes it basically impossible to buy downloadable music (Amazon UK’s webstore won’t sell MP3s to people with US IP addresses; Amazon US’s MP3 store won’t sell to people with UK credit-cards), but I found a handful of her MP3s from various song-of-the-day promo releases, and one of those was Swell Window, which I have since played twenty times in a row and am falling ever more deeply in love with.
Ms Avi, who hails from Malaysia, sells her CDs direct on her website, along with some rather lovely original artwork. She also has a deep and glorious YouTube channel (her career was launched when one of her YouTube uploads gained popularity). And if you’re not caught in an Amazonian overseas travel payment snafu like me, you can buy her MP3s, too.