Charlene Soraia coos mellow pop songs with gentle acoustic backing and occasional orchestral washes of strings, but there's nothing wimpy about the music on the 23-year-old English singer's debut album, Moonchild. Whether she's tripping about in ethereal spaces with gauzy spells like “Lightyears” and the quietly urgent “Postcards From Io” or falling back to Earth with pastoral reveries like “Daffodils” and “Meadow Child,” Soraia layers her chansons with soulfully sumptuous harmonies. A former classmate of Kate Nash and Adele, she even shows her “bad” side on the slyly charming confessional “Almost Stole a Book.” What's even more impressive is Soraia's masterful dexterity on guitar, as she underscores her dreamy tunes with subtly pulsing chords and jazzy inflections.

Mon., March 19, 7 p.m., 2012

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