Train on the Island

Harding’s been burdened with eccentricity, weirdness and surrealism for some time now, cheap shots for an artist who’s simply able to navigate the world with her own ears attuned to her own mind. (A male equivalent would probably be called a visionary.) If that makes Harding myopic in some way, then so be it – we could do well to encourage such myopia. Train on the Island’s wry folk-pop-etc. doesn’t yield its pleasures as readily as, say, 2019’s Designer, but it does a good job of highlighting several things about Harding’s writing: symmetry and exactitude (the structural echoes of “One Step” and “San Francisco”); modular builds (“What Am I Gonna Do?”); ambivalence and uncertainty. There’s an observational spin here that makes these songs read like clips of worlds passing before your eyes, or wakings from dream states. She’s found a useful creative foil in producer John Parrish, who’s able to help Harding realise songs that always compel, even when they pace the room slowly, like an animal waiting to pounce.