Dido Armstrong hails from a fine musical pedigree, being the sister of famed electronic dance producer, the equally extraordinarily talented Rollo, with whom Dido has collaborated both on her own projects, with Rollo co-writing much of Dido’s music, as well as appearing on a number of tracks on Rollo’s legendary electronic band Faithless’s albums in the late 90’s. Rollo burst onto the dance scene in the mid-90’s performing as Rollo Goes Mystic with their classic house track, ‘Love, Love, Love’ Here I Come‘, featuring future Faithless bandmate Sister Bliss on vocals.

Faithless emerged two years later in 1997 with Dido cutting her teeth on a handful of songs, including one that contained what would become the chorus vocal on the haunting ‘My Lover’s Gone‘, from Dido’s 1999 debut album, ‘Life For Rent / No Angel’. After which Dido continued to make cameo vocal appearances on Faithless’ albums into the 2000’s even after she’d become a huge star in her own right. For true Dido fans or indeed newcomers brought in by her latest album, ‘Still On My Mind‘, it is well worth tracking down Dido’s ethereal, dreamy, late 90’s Faithless vocal contributions to appreciate her genesis.

Dido enjoyed a meteoric rise to fame with her first two albums, ‘No Angel’ and ‘Life For Rent’, selling a staggering 21 million copies of ‘No Angel’. This was for a combination of factors, Dido’s haunting, plaintive, soaring and silky-smooth vocals, haunting, personal, deeply and delicately emotional vocals and sensitive, masterfully crafted songwriting. Dido’s music struck such a chord with people because her songs were so personal, something of an emotional watershed that people could connect with and gain release through.

Dido balanced acoustic and electronic quite evenly on these two albums and the acoustic elements were beautifully produced while the electronic elements contained a sophistication that rose well above the everyday, thanks no doubt in part to the second-to-none skills and electronic sensibility of co-writer, her brother Rollo. For her third album, ‘Safe Trip Home‘, Dido scaled back the electronic and dance songs and effects for a gentle, more acoustic sound to much artistic if not the commercial success of her first two albums.

And for fourth album, ‘Girl Who Got Away‘, the electronica and dance tracks returned as they have here on her fifth and latest album, ‘Still On My Mind’. The new album contains that magical Dido concoction of brooding, moody melancholy and joyful, uplifting and spirited inspiration. A strange combination perhaps as they might seem like opposites, but that’s always been Dido’s charm, the “crying on the dancefloor” mystique that worked so well for New Order with ‘Blue Monday‘ for example, although that is a very different genre of dance music. Dido being closer to pop, though with no less credibility, as Dido’s music has always been classy and sophisticated, though unpretentious and winningly down to earth.

With ‘Still On My Mind’, Dido expands that legacy with sweeping and majestic orchestral-sounding synthesiser washes on several songs, such as ‘You Don’t Need A God‘, title track ‘Still On My Mind’ and ‘Walking By‘. We see a welcome return to the epically emotional, sultry up tempo dance tracks such as ‘Take You Home‘ and ‘Hell After This‘, the appealing diversion to reggae in ‘Mad Love’ and the familiar mid-tempo, thoughtful, reflective numbers such as ‘Some Kind Of Love‘ and ‘Hurricanes‘. ‘Still On My Mind’ is an excellent album from Dido, still sounding relevant and stimulating as ever 20 years in. Welcome back, Dido!