Kathryn Williams [Old Low Light]
This is the third listen to this album, and the second appearance in my Blog [26th July 2011], sometimes i actually read what i wrote the last time i played the disc, but most of the time i don't want to plagiarise my own previous thoughts!, but yes i remember now the park bench, a mid summer's day, and felt myself fallen in love with a new album, i also mentioned that 'the third listen should be phenomenal', well... it's not!, but it was still a wonderful disc to listen to, and i still felt an advancement in my love for it, albeit it's slower to develop that love than i thought, and again as the Q Magazine mentioned, 'it's a sly fox of an album' sums it up very nicely, on this listen i noticed its acoustic warm double bass of Jonny Bridgwood, superbly played, Williams is the master [mistress?!] of understatement, some Singer-Songwriters know the art of 'grabbing' you, Williams does the opposite, purposely leaves you alone to come to your own conclusions, also it should be noted, that this time i was slightly annoyed by the lack of track numbers, so i rubbed on some white transfers to correct this, a nice little addition.
Kathryn Williams is English, from her accent i can tell she's from up North [Liverpool], she's now 38, and she made this album in 2002, the front cover photograph, i take it is a family snap at the seaside, and it's of Kathryn on her Mother's lap, it's actually a nice snap taken by her Dad maybe?, of the two of them watching the world go by, a candid shot, nicely backlit, i love the colours, and i would guess it's on the east coast of England [considering the direction of light, and the coastline], and in doing a bit of detective work, i can now see it's possibly her Father's lap she's sitting on!, and her Mother took the snap, er... wait a minute, this is meant to be a music Blog not a photography Blog!.
Well what can i say?, it was tracks 3 & 5 again that i really liked, but this time a lot of the other tracks impressed me more than last time, and here's a synopsis of both of these tracks,
3 Mirrorball - Love the way this one starts, great rhythmic percussion, like some card slapping against the spokes of a spinning bicycle wheel, and the simple piano melody, Williams sings in a high soprano, nice and lyrical and happy, the twang of the guitar mirrors the opening piano melody, there's minor key changes which bring some nice variety, the beginning of each of the new verses are both superb moments, the piano intermittently comes back to play its simple melody, at the end the whole thing rather than fade out, each of the instruments one by one comes to an end, leaving the piano melody to play its lonesome melody, best lyric 'And ended up making the mundane into my shrine'.
5 Daydream And Saunter - Yes it's that upright bass!, a superb opening gambit [0:00-0:08], and the way it twangs against the wood, and i love the way the instruments open out after this intro, the high ping of the guitar, and the muted background trumpet [Graham Hardy], towards the end there's a chamber string arrangement [probably a String Quartet], and the constant bump of a foot pedal drum, best lyric 'I know there's no more in you than you'.
Here's Kathryn Williams Old Low Light album on the AllMusic Website, you can listen to 30 second samples of the tracks.
Kathryn Williams is English, from her accent i can tell she's from up North [Liverpool], she's now 38, and she made this album in 2002, the front cover photograph, i take it is a family snap at the seaside, and it's of Kathryn on her Mother's lap, it's actually a nice snap taken by her Dad maybe?, of the two of them watching the world go by, a candid shot, nicely backlit, i love the colours, and i would guess it's on the east coast of England [considering the direction of light, and the coastline], and in doing a bit of detective work, i can now see it's possibly her Father's lap she's sitting on!, and her Mother took the snap, er... wait a minute, this is meant to be a music Blog not a photography Blog!.
Well what can i say?, it was tracks 3 & 5 again that i really liked, but this time a lot of the other tracks impressed me more than last time, and here's a synopsis of both of these tracks,
3 Mirrorball - Love the way this one starts, great rhythmic percussion, like some card slapping against the spokes of a spinning bicycle wheel, and the simple piano melody, Williams sings in a high soprano, nice and lyrical and happy, the twang of the guitar mirrors the opening piano melody, there's minor key changes which bring some nice variety, the beginning of each of the new verses are both superb moments, the piano intermittently comes back to play its simple melody, at the end the whole thing rather than fade out, each of the instruments one by one comes to an end, leaving the piano melody to play its lonesome melody, best lyric 'And ended up making the mundane into my shrine'.
5 Daydream And Saunter - Yes it's that upright bass!, a superb opening gambit [0:00-0:08], and the way it twangs against the wood, and i love the way the instruments open out after this intro, the high ping of the guitar, and the muted background trumpet [Graham Hardy], towards the end there's a chamber string arrangement [probably a String Quartet], and the constant bump of a foot pedal drum, best lyric 'I know there's no more in you than you'.
Here's Kathryn Williams Old Low Light album on the AllMusic Website, you can listen to 30 second samples of the tracks.
