Making an album might seem like a strange project in an age of streaming, when so many listeners rarely listen to albums from start to finish.

For Raye, however, the album is not merely a selection of individual singles: it is a piece of highly personal storytelling. This Music May Contain Hope – the album that won her the Mercury Prize – is a one-hour-and-13-minute magnum opus. It sweeps from old-Hollywood jazz and big-band productions to cinematic orchestral flourish, guided by a voice that is by turns conversational and theatrical. It is a musical statement of what Raye can do when given free rein.

As she says by way of introduction in Girl Under The Grey Cloud, “allow me to set the scene”. It is 2023, and after seven long years of struggling to convince her former label to let her release an album, Raye independently releases her debut album, My 21st Century Blues.

Three years later, she has taken home the coveted Mercury Prize for her follow-up, This Music May Contain Hope. “Being able to even create an album is a privilege I will never take for granted”, she wrote on Instagram (below), posting a selfie that shows the singer smiling as she clutched her golden trophy at the awards show in Newcastle on October 22.

Over 17 tracks on the album, Raye........

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