Learning From Falling

Review

(J Records)
Release Date: 07/30/2002 12:00

After helping Alicia Keys update the soul-diva formula, J Records head Clive Davis turns his gaze to another genre: the kooky singer-songwriter. As a Kenyan-born Londoner of Omani descent, Lamya al-Mugheiry, 28, scores high on the exotic meter. For her debut, big-name producers including Nellee Hooper (Madonna, U2) match Lamya’s nectary voice and poetic pretensions — “Bring me men to match my mountains,” she implores on “Empires” — with eastern influences, sounding like Massive Attack on vacation in India. But the sitar flourishes in “Splitting Atoms” are muted by Learning’s adult sheen, which lands this unusual record in an awkward middle ground between Björk and, say, Oleta Adams.

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