Two years on from the surprise Mercury Music Prize nomination, Little Black Numbers and feisty yet tender songbird, Kathryn Williams releases ‘Old Low Light’ – a delicately profound and moody exploration of modern living – a kind of Bridget Jones in the country with her wellies on.
As twisty-turny as an autumn leaf – Crud rates the album as one of the best of 2002 . It’s sparse, it’s pastoral and it’s often wickedly amusing – not unlike a boiled down Badly Drawn Boy at his ‘Hour of the Bewilderbeast’ best – or a more whimsical and less unbearable Belle and Sebastian – steeped in situational observations and lined with the lyrical flow of a dog-eared paperback.
From the crisp, stabbing doublebass intro of ‘Little Black Numbers’ to the crisp desultory reflections of ‘3am Phonecall’ – the album melts like a packet of tasty prawn crackers in a finger-bowl of water.
In many ways, Williams is perfectly correct when she describes her ‘wall of sound’ as more a like ‘trellis’ but this characteristically downplays the fibrous raw muscle at work in the songwriting and the confidence and self-possession of the arrangements (‘Tradition’ is 3 minutes 23 seconds of placid genius).
That’s there’s no obvious single beyond the Sinead O’Connor inspired shuffler, ‘No One Takes You Home’is obvious – but who needs a sliver of tasty pastry when you’ve one marvellous, custard filled pie.
Like it’s never too smart to assume the girl with the glasses and the brace could never deliver a cruel blow to your ego one day – don’t let those playground bullies confine this to Radio 2. It’s worth more than that. Much more.