All I Can

It's been a long, long time since a collection of songs has moved me as deeply as Sharon Van Etten's extraordinary new offering, Tramp (Jagjaguwar). There will hopefully be plenty more very good albums released in 2012, but they will have to steam some to compete with this, a strong early contender for my album of the year. Such is its raw honesty and emotional clout that I can barely get through Tramp without tears forming at one point or another. I really enjoyed Van Etten's previous releases but, man, this one really is on another planet.

My favourite song on Tramp is its centrepiece, All I Can. It just destroys me every time. A slow-burning, heartbreaking epic, it puts me in mind of Roy Orbison classics like It's Over and In Dreams. Yeah, that good. Follow the link to see what I mean. Turn it up loud. The gorgeous acoustic rendition of All I Can in the video above sees Van Etten accompanied only by Heather Woods-Broderick (Horse Feathers, Efterklang, Laura Gibson) for the French music video blog site, Soul Kitchen. I hope you enjoy it.