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The Word December ‘07 SAMANTHA MARAIS An eccentric young woman with an early morning voice who you’d be happy to play host to. Samantha Marais’ gentle debut is littered with musical eccentricities. She drops Suwannee whistles, flutes, and pedal harmonium solos magpie-like into her simple folk songs, but even in The Peppermint Conspiracy’s more indulgent moments (like Hourglass, where she accompanies sounds of bathing with a reading of Gerald Manley Hopkins’ poem The Wreck Of The Deutschland) the album plays with barely a hint of affectation. Kicking off with a passage spoken in Zulu – Marais grew up in South Africa – and then merging into ‘60s-flavoured pastoral folk with First Days Of June, her early-morning voice rings clear and true in the same way that Joanna Newsom and Jolie Holland’s do. The Peppermint Conspiracy sometimes sacrifices consistency in favour of experimentation – the bulk of the songs were produced by The Good, The Bad & The Queen’s Simon Tong and Youth. But still, it’s a set of beautiful songs and ideas that sound ancient and fresh in the same breath. JOHN INNES
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