Nick-e – July/August 2006
Who: Nick-e
What: sultry stuff
Where: Newmarket, ON
To Contact: www.nickeonline.com.
In the “thank you” section of her debut EP, Mosaic, Toronto soul singer Nick-e declares, “Wow! It’s finally here. It’s been a four-year labour of love, hate and all that good stuff rolled into one.” So what did she roll in this six-song collection recorded mostly at Toronto’s Kitchen Sync Digital Audio? Well, the first two songs are simply sultry. The title track, which is reminiscent of a less jazzy Sade, features piano and cello, then “It Feels Good” puts some snap (quite literally) into the smooth vibe. One can tell Nick-e, whose real name is Nicole Pratt, can sing – she’s been doing it since the age of three – but one really wants her to bust out and show that she can roar. Instead, the next song, “Numb”, is totally leftfield, a menacing, mostly programmed track on which she delivers a trip-of-the-tongue vocal. Then, she gets jazzy on “I Say” and “If You Were Here” – employing real instruments such as horns, congas, and upright bass before -ending with the moody electronic-based “Turn Me Around”. Nick-e, who won the Mark Caporal Songwriting Award and Great Big Music Studio’s best vocal performance award while studying recorded music production at London, ON’s Fanshawe College, produced the EP herself.
