Ruaridh Nicoll 

Why we are watching: Kristina Train

The 30-year-old singer who you are going to be hearing a lot more from
  
  

Kristina Train
Kristina Train: 'Southern, dreamy, a little battered by life'. Photograph: Pål Hansen for the Observer Photograph: Pal Hansen/Observer

Warm smile, scary bracelet. That's how you've got to be if you come from the land of Aretha Franklin, Tammy Wynette and Gladys Knight.

So she's a southerner? "I'm the girl who falls between," she says. "My mother is a New Yorker, but I was raised in Savannah, Georgia, so I am more Southern leaning, more laid back." She now lives in London.

And a singer? Just signed to Mercury. She grew up listening to James Brown and Otis Redding as well as Knight. Her EP Dream of Me is out at the end of this month, with an album, Dark Black, following in the autumn. She has collaborated with M Craft as well as Ed Harcourt or, as she puts it, "all the men I've ever dreamed about".

And her sound? Southern, dreamy, a little battered by life. Asked whether she left the US because of love, she says: "No, no, not love, more the opposite."

She says: "I just want to sing. It's all I care about. It's the only thing I don't screw up."

We say: Norah Jones fans will love her.

Dream of Me is released on 27 August

 

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