News George Maple

Photo: Daniel Nadel

Name: George Maple
Based: Sydney
Listen: Uphill
Similar to: Jessie Ware

If the thought of yet another ethereal-voiced female chanteuse looking to make it big in 2013 fills you with dread, allow Australian George Maple to convince you otherwise.

Following on from a plethora of acclaim for her guest vocal on Flume’s ‘Bring You Down’ (which she also co-wrote), Maple’s current single ‘Uphill’ goes about its duties with a detached delicacy that sees it flutter between teasing sensuality and a fragility inherent in its refrains of a “two way battle for affection”.

If Maple sounds quite a bit like Jessie Ware, that can only ever be a good thing. There’s that same rosy synthetic glow here, born somewhere in the mid 80s, brought up to date via a minimalism that manages to remain tantalisingly stark, yet fosters enticing warmth.

‘Uphill’ ends up trembling on the cusp of the sublime, showcasing a vocal so effortlessly good it transcends beyond throwaway tags of ‘soulfulness’. With Maple currently in the studio with the likes of Two Inch Punch and Bondax working on new material, there’s the sense this is only the tip of something truly special.