Released on Whirlwind, this debut album from Australian-born, Manchester-based vocalist and songwriter Nishla Smith provides a perfect showcase for her storytelling gifts. An overarching programme underpins the album, which sees Smith inventively mining – over the course of a single evening – her own battle with sleeplessness and fear of the dark. She adroitly weaves her songs into the distinctive quadrants of the night, with four interludes - the melancholic, reflective mood of ‘Twilight’, the frustration of ‘Midnight’, the semi-delirious state of ‘3am’, the sense of relief at ‘Dawn’ which finally offers the hope of sleep - acting as useful framing devices. From the title track’s metaphorical flights of fancy and the heart-melting delicacy of ‘Julian’, to the uplifting, instantly memorable ‘Up’, Smith’s meticulously observed songs compel the attention. Learned from the 1945 film State Fair which she used to watch with her grandmother - an especially important musical figure for Smith - the album’s sole standard ‘It Might As Well Be Spring’ moves up the gears to provide a pleasing change of pace.