After viral covers, acclaimed EPs and a growing reputation as one of Britain’s most naturally gifted R&B vocalists, Elmiene’s moment has arrived. The British-Sudanese singer doesn’t go for a grand statement to prove his greatness, instead his debut album ‘Sounds For Someone’ does something more: it maintains his status as the flawless technician when it comes to soul-stirring R&B. Across 12 carefully sculpted tracks – guided by neo-soul innovators No I.D and Raphael Saadiq – Elmiene treats soul as a vehicle to drive home life’s most taken-for-granted moments.
We know Elmiene can sing – look no further than his 2021 acoustic cover of D’Angelo’s ‘Untitled (How Does It Feel?)’ – but with his debut album, it’s clear the recent The Cover star has learnt how to sang. ‘Sounds For Someone’ is the versatility NME begged for in the review of his 2024 ‘Anyway I Can’ EP.
Marrying his God-given abilities with vivid storytelling and invigorating instrumentals, Elmiene creates cinematic moments on ‘Sounds For Someone’, making everyday emotions move like fully formed characters. He showcased as much with the album’s first two singles: the deeply pensive ‘Cry Against The Wind’ (coloured by grief for his late father) and the jovial loner anthem ‘Reclusive’ – he proves that his sonic stoicism has evolved well into something grander and more commanding. He alludes to this duality on the latter, singing: “I get low then I get high / I get joy sometimes I cry / I just wanna get by.”
But, no other songs feel more like watching a motion picture than the Sampha-produced ‘Special’. Elmiene zooms into love with a microscope – no grand gestures, no milestone dates, “just celebrating all of the ways” love has made him feel special – creating a sultry everyday ode to love that rivals ‘Anniversary’, the 1993 love classic Saadiq co-wrote for his group Tony! Toni! Toné!. This track is where Elmiene finally graduates from being a student of soul to its newest professor, with lived-in devotion that recalls Al Green, lingering intimacy that nods to D’Angelo and unhurried delivery that traces back to Stevie Wonder and beyond.
That same lineage runs deep on ‘Light By The Window’, where Saadiq’s magical basslines live in the details you can feel before you can hear, rolling through like a wave with the glinting guitar lines, sinking into a slinky groove that moves like sunlight across a room. Elmiene plants himself in that light, waiting, voice tracing the edges of hope and doubt as he repeats the image of being “right by the light by the window”. In a powerful tag-team moment, Saadiq passes the baton to the protégé.
Closing song ‘Told You I’ll Make It’ brings the album full circle. Written to a chopped-up reworking of ‘Untitled (How Does It Feel?)’, Elmiene rebuilds the song with a steady, hard-earned assurance – a world away from the unassuming talent who first arrived on the scene. Elmiene has had the talent since his first viral moment, but ‘Sounds For Someone’ marks the arrival of soul’s newest custodian, one who’ll no doubt create classic Sunday songs that will be played for generations to come.
