When Guernsey-born, Birmingham-based singer-songwriter Eloise Fabbri has new music to share, you know it's going to be something special, lavish, intricate and emotionally daring. Her most recent single, "Runnin' away" does precisely that, a stirring mix of soul, R&B, and jazz that teeters gracefully on the line between heartbreak.
Fabbri's hallmark stripped-back intimacy enveloping you like a slow-burning candle, soft but flickering with tension. Her voice is calm and glamorous, but with enough grit to grab its perversely familiar quality, the kind of emotional loop we all get stuck in, going back to people and patterns we know we ought to leave behind. But here, Fabbri doesn't merely report the pain, she owns it. At 2:50, the song gets a seemingly out of nowhere high in the form of a sexy, smooth trombone solo by Dave Sear. It's the rare sort of instrumental interlude that moves like a deep exhale, sultry, sad, full of soul. His trombone cuts through the track like a second voice, mirroring the struggle embedded in the song and adding a jazz-inflected layer that sticks around well after the last note.
Fabbri, who was recognized with a nomination for Birmingham's Best Jazz Artist at the BMAs in 2020, solidifies once more why she's one to watch. Her songwriting doesn't cower behind metaphor, it indulges in that state, presented with nothing more than a piano and a voice that knows precisely when to soar and when to sting.