Call it luck, call it happenstance, call it intuition, but just occasionally every element in a recording – the song list, the performers, the arrangements – seems to align in a magical kind of way, producing a profoundly satisfying arc. This disc of classic Gershwin songs from the London-based singer-songwriter Fini Bearman falls into the above category: reworkings that show such imagination, subtlety and depths of emotion that they immediately take up residence in your heart. It's a collection of extraordinary light and shade, from the deeply swinging opener ‘Gone, Gone, Gone’ to the inexorable unfolding of ‘Prayer (Summertime)’. Bearman sounds terrific throughout, limpid and serene on ‘I Loves You Porgy’, tormented and comfortless on ‘My Man's Gone Now’, vivid and sensuous on ‘Porgy, I'm Your Woman Now’. Bearman's quintet performs small miracles of accompaniment in every song. This is an album I shall be returning to again and again.