A woman's echoing voice commands, "Listen!" A drum loop shudders. Over a swelling keyboard progression, a clear soprano rings out in a striking mix of pride and shame: "You and I, bloodlines, we come together every time." This is how Jessie Ware greets America. "Wildest Moments," the song in question, is a startling ballad of ambivalent fidelity that took over American music blogs late last year. The spare, haunting video, which featured Ware in an elegant suit rotating slowly on a chair-fulfilling her vision "of a perfume ad directed by David Lynch"-has 10.5 million views on YouTube. One of Ware's first U.S. gigs, at New York City's Bowery Ballroom, sold out in half an hour. Not bad for a singer-songwriter whose debut album, Devotion, isn't physically available yet on American shores. (It's out in the U.S. next month and is streaming on iTunes.)
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