Shona Foster

While the Scottish-born Foster’s voice is decidedly contemporary, this is essentially song-based jazz in the Parisian cabaret mode, infused with the wry wit and romanticism of Jaques Brel and shot through with fairground charm. Exquisitely produced, yet somehow evoking the crackly gramophone quality of an old 78, The Moon & You bridges the gap between then and now, there and here. - Crack Magazine

Scots-born and Yorkshire-bred, Shona shines from the captivating opener No. 34 to closing track Collision (if you discount the hidden track at the end, which on no account should!). While there are obvious touchstones like Tori Amos, Feist, Regina Spektor or even Kate Bush, she has baroque bravado in spades and often revels in the dramatic in the vein of Paloma Faith. - Scottish Daily Express

In an overcrowded female singer-songwriter market, Shona Foster might just sneak through. Owing nothing to Carole King, little to Joni Mitchell and much to Bon Iver, drums clatter, piano’s lilt and, on the outstanding Bad Intentions, fingers click. There’s an air of menace throughout, but it’s allied to a sense of adventure, a keening intelligence and a winning way with a Regina Spektor-esque melody and approach to headwear. Where We’ll Go features what sounds like a male voice choir and a clavichord; Be Bold is as bold as Florence And The Machine and NO.34 is an all-out pop stomper. The Yorkshire-raised lass is a real find. - Q Magazine

Scotland has contributed its fair share of female singer/songwriters to the charts. And while she was raised in Yorkshire, Shona Foster was born in Scotland and creates music as epic as a highland glen. Like a rootsy Portishead, her debt album The Moon & You aches with longing.

Ticking clocks begin album opener No.34, as chirpy music hall melody blindsides the destructive lyrics as Shona sings: “this is my lovely home, laden with all I own”. Bad Intentions has the sexy swing of The Cure’s Lovecats. The gloomy atmosphere of Dancing Leaves has Shona sounding like Portishead’s Beth Gibbons to a toe curling rhythm and French accordion. This is trumped by the album’s highlight Oh Patience, a fragile love song of such startling beauty it’s hard to stop listening to it on repeat. The Moon & You is out now. - The Daily Record

From the Ennio Morricone-esq interlude of “Dusk” to the dramatic cabaret of “Queens”, it’s a beguiling journey through a plethora of dynamic musical landscapes. Underpinned by Foster’s delicate vocals and folk-like songwriting, it’s a master class of instrumentation and arrangement. As a follow up to critically acclaimed “Hardwork” EP, there was a lot to live up to… and it has worked. - XYZ

Looking at my notes for reviewing this album, I see that the first thing I have written down is, simply ‘gorgeous!’

It is. There’s something quite special about this album. Towards the end of last year, I reached the point where the phrase ’singer-songwriter’ was becoming severely troubling. So all credit to Shona Foster. The Scots-born, Yorkshire-based singer is genuinely unique, and this is an exciting album. It would be impressive by anyone’s standards -but all the more so, considering it is a debut album. And it draws you in, right from album opener ‘No.34.’

There’s a creativity at work here, in conjunction with a gorgeous voice, that manages to remember the importance of the song. Shona Foster understands decent music and thinks outside the (musical) box. The reference points here are not yet more anodyne singers a la Dido, but the likes of PJ Harvey, Joanna Newsom and Bjork, and even the mighty Kate Bush. It’s as much cabaret and torch singer as it is pop and rock; in fact, probably more so. There’s a touch of Feist, too (’Bad Intentions’ is reminiscent of ‘My Moon My Man’ - in a good way.)

It’s haunting, without being histrionic. Passionate and not pathetic. It’s immaterial whether or not you think this record belongs in 2011; because it’s strong enough and deserving enough to exist in any time. - 17 Seconds