"I write poetry," says Ambersunshower simply. "I write about relationships between men and women. I admit it's an exaggerated view of love and relationships, based partly on personal experience but it's still me doing what I do. I can't say there's a method to the madness. It's just an exaggerated me."

Before you listen to «Walter T. Smith», the stunning debut album on Gee Street Records, leave all your preconceptions about alternative soul at the door. Young and vibrant with a musical talent and flair that belies her years, Ambersunshower is about to invite you into her brave, new world.

A prolific writer of poetry since the age of ten, Ambersunshower Nadine Miligros Villenuevo Smith (yes, that is her real name) is no stranger to the world of music. She was formerly part of Tommy Boy/Flavor Unit Management act Groove Garden, along with DJ Atsushi. The two achieved critical success with the seminal underground hit, «You're Not Coming Home», in 1992.

"I realized I could put my poetry to music," she says. "I eventually hooked up with Q-Tip, though I wasn't part of the Native Tongues, and two years later, I signed with Tommy Boy as Groove Garden with my DJ, Atsushi."

After a highly successful stint as opening act for the Digable Planets on their first national tour, Ambersunshower parted company with her label and Groove Garden eventually dissolved. A trained cook, she went to work for her ailing grandfather's restaurant business, which gave her a chance to regroup and rethink her future.

Spurred on by her love of hip-hop, dance music and British alternative rock, her music and poetry took on a surprising new twist, the results of which appear on her debut full-length, «Walter T. Smith».

After signing to Gee Street Records in 1992, Ambersunshower was actively encouraged by the label to make the transition from rap artist to cutting edge vocalist. "I had no intentions of being a singer. None whatsoever, I was a rapper," she says emphatically. "I didn't think I could sing, so this is very new to me. I was always writing poetry, but I never sang until one day I found my niche - I decided to sing"

«Walter T. Smith» is an emotive journey through the trials and tribulations of love and life, wrapped in an eclectic blanket of funk and pop. With her roots steeped in black music, her debut album goes against the conventional soul grain. Sonically, Walter T. Smith is firmly set in an ethereal world: stripped-down funk with a gritty edge, the lyrics raw testaments of love, delivered in her versatile, sometimes dissonant voice. Chide, for example, is the complete antithesis of hip-hop soul. Here, the young vocalist takes musical chances her peers would never dream of and the results are astounding. When you step into Amber's world, it's cool, breezy and unashamedly emotional.

The first single from the album is the title track dedicated to her late grandfather, who passed away three days after she was signed to Gee Street Records.

"Some people call their album 'cool,' they call it 'passion'", she says. "But I wanted something different. My grandfather had just passed away. He's the one who introduced me to music by Bessie Smith and James Brown and he'd do that finger drumming thing on the table. He was a dear person, so I felt this would be a fitting tribute to him."

Ambersunshower wants «Walter T. Smith» to be an album without definitions or categories, an album that inspires and moves. Songs like Rhythm Child, Serengeti Plains and Beautiful have an almost cinematic feel, with an honesty that some might find uncomfortable. Not Amber, though: for her, this is just another aspect of life.

"I treat each song like it's a movie or a play or a book," she notes. "There is a beginning, a middle, and an end. Let the twelve songs be a life and let each song be an event in that life."

For those of you who insist on labels, Ambersunshower has one thing to say to you. "This is simple, basic, pure, no additives, no bullshit music."