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Kathryn Williams has a voice like a tatty old pair of slippers. Which might seem an unkind thing to say, but the point is that when she starts singing you're overcome with that immediate warm rush of familiarity, your shoulders retreat from their uniform rigidity and every tension point in your body dissipates like a circular ripple on a lake's surface. And she has proven herself time and time again, since 2000's Mercury-nominated
Little Black Numbers, with delicate, discerning folk music, weaving a consuming web of light and shade across life's small details. She is a tested comfort. We could have more charitably likened her to a scented bath in low light, or melting honey on a warm knife, but that aligns her too closely to the Katie Melua's of this world (who, comparatively, she makes look like Barbie in leg warmers). On
Two she carries on to much the same irrefutable standard as before, only this time in beautiful cohorts with Neill MacColl (half-brother of Kirsty, formerly of Eddi Reader and David Gray's bands), who adds complementary haunting tones to Kathryn's leading voice on "Armchair", "Weather Forever" and "Innocent When You Dream" and guitars that spin and pirouette like a pair alone on an empty ballroom floor followed by a doting spotlight. They are immediately compatible and together they spin a rich tapestry, from the Nick Drake-esque simplicity of "6am Corner", to the bleak seduction of double-bass heavy "Grey Goes" to the lavish string arrangements of "Shoulders".
--James Berry
Product Description
Supremely talented Mercury prize nominee Kathryn Williams and amazing guitarist/vocalist Neill MacColl teamed up to record the critically-acclaimed TWO, one of the most astonishingly beautiful albums to see the light of day in recent years. Williams has become known as one of the UK 's most respected singer/songwriters and was honored with a Mercury Prize nomination in 2000. MacColl is the son of Ewan MacColl, who wrote 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' for his mother Peggy Seeger. The two met at the Daughters of Albion concert (part of the BBC's Folk Britannia season), where they had been paired to perform 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.'
