INPRESS MAGAZINE – SINGLED OUT 7th January 2009
Jessica Says ‘His Mother’s Ring’
"When so many female artists faff around with dinky dolly voices and tweetastic arrangements, it’s heartening to welcome Jessica Says’ genuinely anticipated debut album We Need To Talk and this, its first single. It may seem odd to chastise dolly/baby voices when Jessica Venables certainly inches towards the trilling end of the spectrum, but coupled with her cello (close to my favourite instrument, for its melancholia and sensuality)and her smarts, Venables turns these sweet melodies into something with far more depth than her caged canary peers. The Kate Bush comparisons are surely inevitable and somewhat lazy, but if there’s something to be taken from them it’s how good it is to find a female artist for whom trilling equals eccentricity and intelligence rather than coyness or capitulation.’
- Clem Bastow