Thanks to the chance meeting of translation student and label guru on a train, as the liner notes to the reissue of explain, first made its mark with the nervy -meets- mania of the single which also leads off her debut album as a whole. Spy atmospherics permeate the album and not just in sound -- thus song titles like But while and her musical collaborators (led by , credited among other things with playing "Bond guitars") are definitely enamored of a mythical jet-set past where dapper secret agents are busy running around space age sets with a drink in hand, there's actually less per se retro about than many other albums that followed in its wake -- instead of simply cool styles, things at times feel nervous, jittery, a response to a time and place (early-'80s U.K. grimness, in the music scene and real life) that's of the moment. That said, the moody-start-of-the-film feeling of practically begs to soundtrack a sequence where hauls a body out of the Seine. herself acts less as the lead singer and more as the narrator of her own adventures, a running rampant and occasional striking reflective poses amid orchestral swells and energetic percussion. When she does take a more formal lead singing role, she comes across as a bit light if not unpleasantly so, as on Meantime, the jaunty piano-led kick of and the moody '70s rather than '60s -ness of shows that there's more here than a restrictive stereotype. ~ Ned Raggett