CreAsian
Pop, 2001

Asha Edmund, or just Asha here, serves up Satellite, a one-off album. She has been languishing in pubs and secondary roles in plays for a while now, and if there is any justice in this world, she should be as big in terms of popularity as her voice.

It’s just too bad that most of the tracks here choose to bury her soulful voice under modern whizzing studio manipulations. As if she needs any – I’ve seen her perform live and she is incredible. Hence tracks laden with house beats like Moonbeam and Dana, while pretty listenable, don’t just feel right, because Asha’s voice seems reduced into a mere instrument.

But she shines in lovely mid-tempo to ballad tracks such as my favorite, Can’t Let Maggie Go, a stripped bare version of The Honeybus original, where her husky/dulcet voice takes the center stage.

To be honest, most of these tracks in the album are standard jazzy, orchy anthems with modern house grooves added to give them the hip factor. But oh, that voice, that voice! If Asha can take mediocrity and make it fly, imagine what she can do with a really good piece of work.