It is a lush concert hall location that tonight presents the Southeast of England instalment of Tanita Tikaram’s tour in support of her new album ‘LIAR (Love Isn’t A Right).’ This is a theatre setting that combines the grandeur of a concert hall recital, wherein the sublime acoustics are especially delightful, yet with a capacity of 740 seats retains an ability to encourage some intimacy between audience and artist. Whilst the overall impression of the venue is one of traditional design and construction there is an enveloping modern sheen too which, rather aptly, is also something that can be said of Tanita Tikaram’s music in 2025. These days she is some 37 years advanced from the diffidently bopping folksy songwriter that really did storm the UK pop charts all those years ago. Today Tanita is a wonderfully matured individualistic songwriter and singer whose sound demands the kind of attention and presentation this type of venue invites.

Tonight’s concert is a masterclass in baroque chamber pop, a fine grain of distinctly English music that can be heard in the most acclaimed art pop ever made (think ‘Eleanor Rigby’) and is also a key element in the celebrated high water marks of the 20^th century singer-songwriter boom (think Nick Drake). That Tanita is tuned in to her musical vital ingredients extends to some fine song choices by other artists placing her in the realms of a connoisseur. In fact, it is a song by Nick Drake’s mother Molly that supplies the new albums title track and a sufficiently weighty melancholy as to appear handwritten for her latest set of songs. That same motivation to put the music first extends to this evenings live performance during which the star attraction is happy to occasionally disappear as a quarter component in a four-piece ensemble. Her first encore number is an exquisite cover of John Martyn’s ‘May You Never’ during which Tanita hands a substantial portion of the lead vocal over to cellist Zosia Jagodzinska. She is also proud to highlight her longtime violinist Helen O’Hara on a poised duo rendition of oldie ‘Valentine Heart’ (a song which the writer confesses was written about romantic love before she had any personal experience of such a thing). She also gives compositional kudos to drummer Marc Pell on the new ‘Sweet Feather And The Storm’, describing it as being born out of a jam between herself and the percussion maestro.

For me, one major positive take away from tonight’s concert was that the vast majority of those in attendance wanted to hear the music from the new album as much as the oldies. In fact, a spontaneous cheer erupted when the singer announced that this latest album would be the main focus. I highlight this because I have long been of the opinion that Tanita’s work has developed and grown into something quite wonderful over the years. I would particularly emphasise that her most recent albums are her best, so the necessity she feels to include a lot of material from that 1988 debut ‘Ancient Heart’ feels a little less essential to me. A curious thing seemed to happen back then, we saw a whole crop of talented female folk leaning singers emerge and enjoy significant chart success; this included people like Tracy Chapman, Michelle Shocked and Eddi Reader’s Fairground Attraction who all had their biggest mainstream success that year, despite carrying on to enjoy lengthy careers making increasingly wonderful music. Tanita has arguably suffered the most from an association with one specific era, but quite why this should be the case for any of the above is hard to pinpoint. Maybe the giant musical sea changes that swept aside the 1980s, the arrivals of dance, grunge, Britpop and the like, caused an avalanche of fresh excitement relegating the class of ’88 to the margins? If so, we are fortunate today that Tanita Tikaram still found a pathway to nurturing her writing and evolving to the sweet spot we find her in today.

So, in Saffron Walden we are treated to primarily music from 1988’s ‘Ancient Heart’ album and 2025’s ‘LIAR’. That acoustic guitar strumming nearly-dancer of yore is still in there, pleasing the one person rising to their feet to groove along with ‘Good Tradition’ every bit as much as I was spellbound by the cold punch and empty ache of ‘Lover Don’t Come Around.’ Some of her youthful offerings have aged extremely well, ‘World Outside Your Window’ nowadays has the elegance of a folk-pop standard while ‘Twist In My Sobriety’, with a trembly faster tempo, remains a darkly enigmatic song of which the singer herself admits “I have no idea what it’s about, and I wrote it”. To my eyes and ears though, she appears far more at home when seated at the piano facing her bandmates, wearing an inviting expression to get lost in this music. It is met with interest too, as Tanita picks the beautiful piano melody on ‘This Perfect Friend,’ the strings and percussion first smoulder then erupt into a whirlwind of bittersweet elegance. Equally a cover of ‘Wild Is The Wind’ (also performed on the album), which she acknowledges is inspired by the Nina Simone version, is absolutely mesmerising. Tanita closes the night at the piano too, lifting ‘I See A Morning’ from ‘LIAR’ and re-contextualising it as a soulful, gospel adjacent hymn to the hope ushered in at the dawning of a new day. It brings an end to a thoroughly immersive evening of music and underlines the point that, even if Tanita Tikaram hit a commercial peak four decades back, this has not impeded her pathway to an artistic peak in the present day. I believe she has realised just that and if you have not done so already, urge you to rediscover her work.

Words Danny Neill  Photos Sophie Reichert