Lira set a soul scorching benchmark with her 2006 album FEEL GOOD – and with her late 2008 release, SOUL IN MIND she’s once again created a record that is defined by its honesty, soulfulness, femininity and utter joyfulness.

What’s more, the 29-year-old has also delivered an album that effortlessly shows Lira’s growth over the past two years – most especially as a songwriter and intuitive performer, turning the young girl who showed the first glimpses of her gift more than five years ago into a woman with a world class talent.

“I think the album is the sound of a woman getting into her own skin, of finding her own creative voice and exploring the music that people heard on ‘Feel Good’ but taking it much deeper,” Lira explains.

Importantly, however, that “taking it deeper” is never at the expense of alienating her audience: instead Lira has, in SOUL IN MIND, crafted an album that will fold itself into the hearts of listeners, offering the warmth and comfort of someone who instinctively knows how to convey life’s big themes in a way that instantly resonates.

SOUL IN MIND is a perfect example of this. Its lyrics may be potently personal (“I am a child born of love/so let love remain in my heart and my mind/let love enjoy be my friend/give me peace with no end/let me live with no fear and no shame/let me begin to see love come alive come alive in my life/let me feel how it feels to be me”) but Lira delivers them with such intensely felt emotions that it’s impossible not to feel how they intersect with your own life. When Lira sings “I want it all”, all the desires of her fans will be swept along with her, caught in the slipstream of this gifted artist’s musical power.