Thelma’s origin seems to suggest that Natasha Jacobs’ musical abilities sprouted from the singer-songwriter almost spontaneously, whilst she convalesced after a life-changing fall from a ladder. Although there is surely more of a back-story than that, this was when she started writing songs and playing guitar.

The Brooklyn, NY-based project itself began two years later as a solo endeavor but soon became a band when Daniel Siles, Maciej Lewandowski, and Juan Pablo Siles joined. On Thelma’s self-titled debut, Natasha doubles down on at least one aspect of the tale; she asserts her right to be fallen. In doing so, Thelma reveals both a self that has been projected onto her as well as the fantasy of her own projected self. While the songwriter’s falsetto is effortless and pure – its brilliant intricacies conveying playfulness and impetuousness – these seven songs are anything but pure.

They make no pretense of representing a natural or spontaneous expressive moment. They are fastidious. And they are gigantic. If anything, the songs exude that most impure, un-sweet, un-angelic motivation: ambition. Within the lyrics too there is a thematic insistence on the writer not wanting to be pure or objectified.

Above all, Thelma demonstrates real work; an exacting, intricate, sometimes beautifully sparse production with contrastingly serendipitous vocals. It demands attention to the band as a whole, and to Natasha Jacob’s work as a composer, vocalist, and a wildly intense guitarist. – Akiva Zamcheck