Neki Tamo Cudaciludacisamotnjaci (part 3)

David J. Roch – Skin & Bones (2011)

Produced by Jim Sclavunos (of Grinderman and Nick Cave + The Bad Seeds), David J Roch’s debut album offers a collection of darkly romantic compositions of epic sweep. Whether set against a backdrop of lush orchestration, stark electronic ambience or thrumming crescendos, Roch’s voice compels and mesmerizes as it leaps from sonorous baritone to soaring falsetto.

David’s stirring vocal style resonates with echoes of both Tim and Jeff Buckley or Nick Drake, also bringing to mind singers well outside the folk milieu such as Matt Berninger (The National) or Antony Hegarty. But it is jazz chanteuses Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday that David cites as his personal inspirations, while lyrically he feels a kinship with poets as timeless as William Blake or as contemporary as Simon Armitage.