Now here’s a singer/songwriter working the silky smooth end of R&B/funk, not the contemporary version with its glissandos but the jazz/cabaret end, if you will,the field Sade ploughed so successfully a few years ago. Smokier and funkier than Sade however, Louise is more old school, with a dash of that Philly sound here, that Earth Wind & Fire flash there. This is one sophisticated lady, and she’s surrounded herself with a group of musicians as tasteful as she to deliver..as aware of space as they are of groove and technique.
And she’s called in some great players indeed, perfectly complimenting Louise’s voice. Guitarist Peter Northcote shines with a rare subtlety, while Kere Buchanan not only shares some of the writing with Louise but also plays keyboards and drums and even adds to some of the harmony blocks that add that little extra soul/gospel feel to songs like Prayer For You and This Is Heaven. Beautiful stuff, delivered with a quiet passion.

Whether that’s a good thing in a country like Australia, where this style has never really found fertile soil is a moot point. Perhaps that’s why Louise has found the European community embracing this album where she remains a simple working girl struggling to make a living out of her original music here. Whisper My Name is the kind of late night chillout album that begs for serious AOR airplay commitment in Australian radio. The reality is that the best hope for Louise and artists like her, in the long term, is to get a copy of the album to Whitney Housten so that the American diva records a version of Stay and makes Lou a million bucks. Then she can just get on and make the music she wants to make for an appreciative European audience, tour there during the northern summer, and enjoy sydney’s slowly evolving cosmopolitan life without having to worry too much about whether this city is picking up on what she’s doing.

Michael Smith, The Drum Media