New York-based singer/songwriter (and actress/screenwriter, etc.)
Susannah Blinkoff makes her recorded debut under the sobriquet
Camp Susannah with an album of mature, sensitive pop songs that strongly recall late-era
Everything But the Girl, when the duo's original folk-jazz-indie inclinations were being supplanted by downtempo electronic beats. (The exception is the sassy "Catch Me," which sounds unnervingly like a lesser track by New York's It Girl of 2004,
Nellie McKay.)
Blinkoff, the daughter of '70s singer/songwriter
Carol Hall (best known for her original score of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas), has a voice that's appealing but not terribly distinctive, and her songwriting can sometimes be similarly vague. At the album's best, like the tropical-flavored piano ballad "We Were Gonna Be,"
Blinkoff sounds like a somewhat more aggressive
Norah Jones. Filler like the unnecessary remix of the opening "Way OK" does mar the album a bit, but overall,
Happy Today delivers on most of its promise. ~ Stewart Mason