Maz Totterdell “Sweep”

Series 8, 2012

Maz a star? Teenage prodigy shows promise

• Promise is exactly what a teenager should show, anything else would be galling.  So be thankful that Totterdell shows admirable restraint and simplicity - It would have been easy to try too hard to impress.

• Instead the songs are open and honest and wait for the listener to come to them. Laura Marling is an obvious comparison but a good one, songs like ‘Delirious’ sounds at one and the same time like the Marine Girls from the early 1980’s with their Home Counties version of lo-fi folk and also completely modern music made by people whose creativity rarely stretches to inventing a full name.

  She mixes things up nicely; ‘Kaleidescope’ features just acoustic guitar and violin and is restrained, whereas ‘Smile on Sunshine’ is a playful melody, finger clicks and handclaps.  An excursion into traditional folk ‘Willow (Angel Child)’ mixes in some Nick Drake for good measure. ‘Blushing Bride’ shows precociousness, it’s a lovely hushed blend of guitar, cello and tambourine; it leaves me wondering how one so young could produce something so lovely.

  The percussive frog (sic) and playful keyboards of ‘Little Puzzle’ show that she’s not some maladjusted prodigy but a talented young person with a whole host of possibilities in front of her.