Slowe is an up-and-coming vocalist/producer/multi-instrumentalist from Bristol, UK. While most people have not heard of her yet, what matters is that Tru Thought has, as they’ve signed her and now present her debut album, Where the Mind Wanders.

Most of the time, when you listen to a young artists’ debut album, you tend to mostly talk about potential. There might be a few moments where things click, but mostly you can see where things might come together on future projects once they figure things out like how to marry all of their influences and how to best record themselves. Well, I can’t say how long Slowe has been honing her craft up to this point or how, but what I can say is that I was pleasantly surprised at how polished and self-assured this album sounds. Slowe is essentially a singer-songwriter, except that she’s bringing in all these different and interesting elements from jazz, soul, hip hop, psychedelia, and more. There are times when it sounds straight up neo-soul, but then it might veer more into a trip hop feeling, and then other times it might feel more like classic ‘70s soul. Other times, Slowe might be steering the ship with some truly excellent jazz guitar with an amazing clean tone and delightful melodies. It’s all on the table for Slowe. What’s especially remarkable, though, is the way that she’s able to tie all of this together and make it all part of her own sound. One way in which she does that is her confidence in her vocals and lyrics, both of which combine to bring this really intimate quality to the album. It makes you really feel like you’re getting to know who Slowe is on a personal level, like you’re in the room as she’s playing and recording the music. The one thing I could point to as potential for growth in the future is that there is room for Slowe to explore some more uptempo songs, just to give the album some variety in that manner. Everything else will only get better as she gets more experience, but she’s already way ahead than most artists are in her position.

Where the Mind Wanders is a hell of a debut from Slowe. She writes and performs with a confidence that suggests a much longer resume than she has. She had put herself in conversation with a lot of interesting and varied artists with this album, and it is going to be fascinating and exciting to see where she goes from here.