I love the organic way I stumble upon music. In this case, I was just browsing through Instagram and came across Jessie playing a track live. I knew instantly I'd found something special.

I'm not sure if this album is so new it hasn't yet made its way to Bandcamp and other services, or if it's only recently been uploaded to YouTube Music, but it carried a 2026 timestamp and was one of two 2026 albums that immediately drew me in.

The album opens with "Give Me Love". A simple guitar laid over ethereal vocals. I say simple, but it's often something complex and beautiful that comes across as effortless. It's a fairly stripped-back vocal track, supported subtly by violin and drums, resulting in something slow, deliberate and a great way to open the album.

"Time Goes By" is, I think, the track I heard on Instagram. Again, it features beautiful cascading acoustic guitar work, with electric guitar support underneath vocals that sit cool, calm and effortless over the top. The track is a little more upbeat than before, but still completely unhurried.

The next track, "Home", has a more personal, intimate feel, but towards the end it briefly breaks out of itself before returning to its regular tone and pace.

I can honestly say I've never listened to a track called, let alone featuring, the word madrigal, but here we are with "Madrigal", and that run is now broken. As before, this is a gentle cossetting of your ears which, believe me, is not unpleasant.

I love acoustic guitar and here there's something especially evocative about the combination of guitar and vocals. I think a lot of that comes down to the guitar performance itself, which is confident and accomplished, and after all, was the thing that first pricked up my ears when I discovered Jessie's music.

Then we come to the title track, "Other Hand", which for me is a definite departure from everything that's come before. That's not a bad thing, just different. It has a far more produced sound, built on a synth foundation, while still retaining the wonderful guitar work heard throughout the album. It feels less like a live performance and more like something carefully shaped in the studio. The result adds another rich layer to the album and gives it a new focal point.

And if that earlier change of direction was surprising, it's nothing compared to "To Be Relied On", which carries a far more calypso-inspired feel. These shifts in style are initially surprising, but somehow never feel disconnected from the rest of the album. Instead, they come across as different flavours of the same overall vision, and the production throughout results in something genuinely absorbing to listen to.

The album closes with "Like I Do (Stripped Version)", which, as you might expect, is a far more stripped-back version of a track that already felt fairly sparse. At least, that was until hearing this interpretation. It's mostly guitar, bass and drums, with the vocals been all but stripped away. An interesting decision. Personally, I would probably have gone with just acoustic guitar and vocals, removing almost every trace of production to leave something completely raw and exposed. Still, even taken in a different direction, it works as a fitting way to close the album.

This is a beautiful album, one that not only showcases Jessie's voice, but also, I suspect, her wonderful guitar work. A shoutout too to the production, which sounds fantastic throughout. I listened, as I usually do, through headphones, and it made for a wonderfully immersive experience. I'm fairly certain this won't be the last time I feature Jessie's music.