WHO: Amber Arcades WHAT: Dutch songwriter Annelotte de Graaf WHY: She channels the very best of Broadcast and Mazzy Star HOW: Most musician stories run roughly the same. They’re born, raised on their parents’ record collection and then either meet like-minded friends at school and form a band, or don’t meet like-minded friends at school and retreat to their bedroom with a laptop and become a feted electronica producer.

Very few musicians have a tale like Annelotte de Graaf’s, now better known, and hopefully soon very well known, as Amber Arcades.

She didn’t really have any musical ambitions growing up, although did save a little cash so she could go travelling before university. By the time that opportunity came, she decided not to go globe-trotting, but had become interested in writing songs.

A few years later, the money she’d saved still burning a hole in her pocket, she took herself to New York to make a record.

De Graaf, in the meantime, had gained not one, but two law degrees and worked as an aide at the international war crimes tribunal. She currently works a full-time job leafing through the claims of asylum seekers in the Netherlands.

She apparently had qualms about having no fans to listen to the (brilliant) album she’d made, but fortunately her boyfriend was doing some work at wonderful record label Heavenly, and played her music to label boss Jeff Barrett and here we are.

Musically, she sounds not unlike Birmingham dream-pop icons Broadcast, or Santa Monica dream-pop icons Mazzy Star, although De Graaf recently told The Guardian that it doesn’t do her music justice to only focus on who she sounds like. Fair point.

WHERE: Fading Lines, her frankly brilliant debut album, is out now. It’s a suitably summery, hazy record that washes over you as it plays - perfect if, I don’t know, there’s a big news story you’re trying to distract yourself from.

If you want a taste of the album before buying, visit De Graaf’s Soundcloud page at soundcloud.com/amber-arcades or Bandcamp page at amberarcades.bandcamp.com, where you can hear a host of songs, including Fading Lines, Right Now and Turning Light. Her official website can be found at www.amberarcades.net and she’s going to be playing festivals in the UK between now and September.