Kathryn William // The Quickening // One Little Indian // 22.02.10
Folk/indie songstress Kathryn Williams returns with her new album The Quickening and it is a blinding affair.
Opening track 50 White Lines starts off sounding like Paranoid Android by Radiohead and even throughout the track with the robotic male backing vocal counting white lines, it sounds as though it could have come off OK Computer. Williams’ voice is sweet and delicate and there is an almost child-like quality to it, so no matter what she sings, it ends up sounding like a lullaby.
While the album is largely acoustic, Williams takes chances like on Just A Feeling where she makes a sitar sound like a folk instrument (!). The album was recorded at Bryn Derwen Studio in North Wales and tracks like Winter is Sharp shows the Celtic influence of her surroundings. Sounding like an addition to the Ninth Wave part of the Hounds of Love by Kate Bush with its fiddles and sparse arrangements, this, to me, is the stand out song of the album. No sooner have we got used to this, we are presented with Wanting and Waiting which lyrically is like Dido with talent. A kitchen sink tale of an urban girl and her longing for her lover, this is the most commercial song on the album by far.
Williams wears her influences on her sleeve and on both Just Leave and Cream of the Crop, she is reminiscent of the likes of Janis Ian and Joni Mitchell. Cream of the Crop indeed sounds as though it has come from the 1970s, when American female folk singers were all the rage.
The Quickening could not be described as a jolly album, but I would not say it’s as sinister or dark as has been claimed. Nothing with William’s beautiful, wistful, confessional voice could ever been deemed sinister. She could sing ‘Fire’ by Arthur Brown and it would still sound seductive.
The nearest comparable album of the last five years would be White Chalk by PJ Harvey. A great album for those who are already Kathryn Williams fans and a superb introduction for those who have yet to be acquainted.
9/10
By Karen Mason
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