Listening to the three pre-released tracks from the much anticipated debut solo album from multi-talented collaborator Harkin the precise direction of the LP is still an enticing mystery. ‘Nothing the Night Can’t Change’ floated some atmospheric keys into the mix but was essentially an all-out rocker, built around the title chorus. ‘Up to Speed’ was a sparser affair driven by unrelenting drums, evoking a widescreen road movie with a distant horizon.
Now ‘Dial It In’ appears, the final preview before the full package is released on 24th April. Described by Harkin as ‘….a song about valuing intuition over entitlement…’, it has a loose, sprawling but highly addictive structure – a stream of very adept phrasing always culminating in the key idea ‘…you can’t just dial it in…’.
Meanwhile the bass plants the root notes then dances expansively, a distorted guitar comes and goes and Harkin echoes her own beautifully sung lines with multi-tracks of voices. It is a pleasant journey that goes nowhere in particular, but compulsively makes you return to the start when it finishes…