Manchester’s Shura (aka, but not to many, we think, Alexandra Lilah Denton) is possibly the only songwriter/musician to have been nominated for the BBC’s Sound of 2015 – or any other year, for that matter –who developed their songwriting skills while working in the Amazon rainforest.
Her cultured background (mother an actor, father a documentary filmmaker; she studied English Lit at college) may not have informed her music, but the song narratives are as perceptive and lucid as you could hope for.
As for the music – well, there's no doubt whatsoever that Shura knows her way in and around pop music: with the exception of the final self-indulgent, rambling nine-plus-minutes of The Space Tapes, the remainder of Nothing's Real contains some of the most assured, deft dance-pop of the year.
