 
 NME Loves: The jewel in the crown of the future-pop frontier, with plans as big as her anti-anthems.
MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS
Leaping out from behind a pillar in Soho's Bar Chocolate before greeting NME with a hug, a kiss and a throaty giggle, 23-year old Marina Diamond (birth name!) starts as she means to go on; a wild-haired ball of powerhouse energy and grand gestures. With a Greek dad and a Welsh mom, the now-north London-based songstress lived in both countries doing most of her growing up in a tiny village in south Wales where, she gleefully tells us, "school trips would consist of going to see lambs being born," adding "shooting out of a vagina!" in an appropiately theatrical tone.
A sense of drama, see, is essential to Marina's sound: a firm, feminine patchwork stitched together with a love of PJ Harvey, The Dresden Dolls and Kate Bush - strong women with strong tunes. That wasn't always the case though, as Marina shamefacedly tells us of the obscenely emotional outpourings she was writing four years ago. "My first songs were disgusting," she cringes. "I hated them. If they ever came out I would die!" Luckily, when she hit 20, "it kind of levelled out and I started writing good stuff". That good stuff - which tackles the universal cornerstones of truth, honesty and integrity - includes "Obsessions", a twinkling Regina Spektor-worthy heartbreaker about the dying days of love which, somoewhat cruelly, is being released in time for Valentine's Day. It's backed by the chirpier "Mowgli's Road", a bewitched hippy-punk stakeout which offers a tour around Marina's mesmerising, gem0studded daydream world.
Despite the fact her debut album isn't due for release until October, Marina is already planning far further ahead, unflinchingly stating, "My aim is in three years to play the American MTV Awards." Yet with plans for a stage show of Madge-like proportions, it might not be such a far-flung fantasy. She's decided she wants a choreographer for "totally over-the-top, camp moves", and costumes that would out-do Gwen Stefani after a tequilla-driven rummage through a fancy-dress box. "I want half of it to be massive ball gowns, like meringue emerald green dresses and some kind of Queen Elizabeth I mock fan - anything regal, basically.
Then the other side of it is really sharpe, kind of like Jean Paul Gautier." She pauses, grinning, "It will happen."
And the pluralising of Diamonds? "The Diamonds," Marina boldly ventures, softly spoken for the first time, "are anyone who understands me or likes me out there." Count us in.
Leonie Cooper
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