Nyah Grace has raised her game. Five years since the Manchester via Oregon soul singer made her the ballad-heavy debut, she’s patented a bespoke brand of smoky, sassy confessional R&B that’s entirely her own. Co-written and produced with De’Jour Thomas (Chlöe, Fousheé, Monaleo) her new album Divinely Devoted doesn’t so much consolidate on her debut’s promise as spin it a whole new direction.

Intimate and concise at just 31 minutes, its songs came together in a burst of creativity, following an exploratory two-day studio session in Los Angeles last August. “I’d heard some of De’Jour’s other stuff before, but we went in pretty blind,” says Nyah. “We didn’t really know how we were gonna work together.”

The first song they co-wrote, ‘Only Mine’, proved foundational, De’Jour’s sparce production aesthetic allowing her sumptuous voice room to breathe. “We wrote, recorded and finished that in a day,” she recalls. “His friend Abi played guitar and we were just vibing in the studio. It was really fun.” Seamlessly multi-tracked over slinky pianos and a looping bassline, Nyah’s honeyed voice conveys the complexities of human experience with the gravitas of Sade or Mahalia.