Album review

Irma

Letter to the Lord

Paris 

25/02/2011 - 

After being discovered on the internet, young Cameroonian singer Irma signed up with the fan-funded music label My Major Company. The result is Letter to the Lord – a soft and sensuous first album exuding r‘n’b and soul.

As a teenager back in Cameroon, Irma wrote songs. She would pinch her dad’s guitar and invent luminous lyrics and tunes to reflect the patchwork of love, affection and faith that made up her life. Once she had built up the courage, the young woman spoonfed on the likes of Michael Jackson, Eric Clapton and Ben Harper posted her compositions on the web.

The grapevine set to work until her songs reached the producers of the fan-funded music label, My Major Company, whose catalogue was the starting block for names like Grégoire and Joyce Jonathan. In August 2008, it took less than 48 hours to gather the 70,000 euro needed to produce her first album, generously handed over by 416 internet users cum producers.

It was a record amount and created enough buzz to propel the young singer in her twenties straight into the spotlight. She played support act to Amel Bent, M, Micky Green, Tété and last autumn was a resident feature at the Java, all of which helped draw out her soul, folk, r‘n’b style that blends skilful rhythms with a rounded, ethereal voice spilling with warmth. 

Letter to the Lord, her first album, is a promising offering of sensuous melodies, catchy chorus lines and an intimate atmosphere played out on piano, guitar and vocals. What Irma now needs is to achieve the mark of originality and signature of the soul that will take her out of mainstream soul-r‘n’b.

Irma Letter to The Lord (My Major Company) 2011
Playing live on 15 March at Café de la Danse in Paris and on tour in France.

Anne-Laure  Lemancel

Translation : Anne-Marie  Harper