A Rumer you haven’t heard before

Singer Sarah Joyce’s second album is relaxing and breezy despite her producer leaving before its completion, says Ed Power

SARAH JOYCE, aka Rumer, is speaking in Dr Who metaphors. “Making my new album was like opening the door to the Tardis,” says the soul singer. “From the outside, it looks small. Then, you get into it, and it’s much bigger than you imagined.” Boys Don’t Cry is a collection of soft-focused 1970s covers. It’s a breezy, relaxing listen. There is little inkling of the fraught circumstances in which it was recorded. Rumer and her long-time mentor and producer, Steve Brown, had a bitter falling out. They have not been in contact since. She wells up at the mention of his name.

“I thought, ‘what a disaster’,” says Joyce. “It was a mess. I suspected I was going to have to ring everyone up and apologise. ‘Sorry, it didn’t work out, I’ve had to scrap it’.”