Olivia Dean’s The Art of Loving: the powerful sound of Britain’s newest star

In his recent interview with Rolling Stone UK about your second album, Olivia Dean paraphrased the book bell hooks All About Love. “For some reason, it’s seen as this mystical, unattainable thing that we should all just try and figure out,” he said. Dean. “bell hooks says something like: imagine if we had a class in elementary school that was, like, emotional studies? So we could teach each other some etiquette and how to take care of each other.”

In The Art of Loving, Dean she interrogates her own experiences and feelings of love, why she loves who she loves and the way she loves. Through her impeccable, honeyed voice and instrumentation that positions her somewhere between a neo-soul star and an old-style jazz singer, she presents something close to those ABCs of love she believes should be taught in schools.

Throughout the new album, love can be all butterflies and euphoria (the excellent, infectious chart hit “Nice to Each Other”), an unstoppable force that just happens to you (“So Easy (To Fall in Love)”) and self-love without anyone else considered (“Baby Steps”).

These sometimes conflicting feelings are conveyed on an album that sonically oscillates between light, upbeat pop songs, wistful ballads, sublime soul music and back again. It’s the excellent voice of Dean that holds it all together, however, as does his commitment to breaking new ground both personally and musically.

“I would never sit here and claim to be like the Oracle, or the wise owl of love,” he added. Dean in that same interview, but by sharing what she’s learned — warts and all — on this special second album, she begins to decipher the most consistently mystifying thing about being alive, becoming a modern British star in the process.

• Olivia Dean