Reviews
Artist:Katherine Priddy Album: Pendulum Swing
Label: Cooking Vinyl
Tracks: 12
Website: https://www.katherinepriddy.co.uk/
British (from Birmingham) singer-songwriter Katherine Priddy released her debut EP Wolf in 2018, which in itself marked her out as a seriously special and individual talent. She then moved on fast to key festival appearances including Cambridge and Glastonbury, and received glowing press reviews and endorsements from prominent artists whom she was privileged to support including Richard Thompson. Her first full-length album, 2021's The Eternal Rocks Beneath, was acclaimed from all quarters, and for all that it was centred around songs she'd lived with since childhood, it was a strikingly mature-sounding collection. Katherine's retained the services of her producer Simon J. Weaver for her eagerly-awaited followup, Pendulum Swing, a fresh collection of songs which shows an even greater maturity in the writing while continuing to embrace and reflectively develop the central theme that has always preoccupied her and which gives the album its title - the restlessness and constant momentum of the pull between the urge to leave and the often stronger desire to return, craving the comfort and nostalgia of the past.
It's perhaps indicative that just last year Katherine contributed a track to the Nick Drake covers/tribute set Endless Coloured Ways, the little-heard early composition I Think They're Leaving Me Behind. The sensibility of this choice, and Nick's work generally, have clearly made their mark on Katherine, especially in the almost subliminal impression which her songs initially make, although her singing probably more closely resembles Vashti Bunyan than Nick Drake. However, the soft, dreamy quality of Katherine's own sound world is if anything even more compelling; it casts a spell from which it's impossible to escape. Pendulum Swing is one of those albums which flows so naturally and inexorably that it's most satisfying for me when listened to as a complete sequence; having said that, I can't help returning to individual songs - often - for their haunting, fragile textured beauty.
The album is bookended by a pair of brief instrumental pieces (Returning and Leaving) that tellingly create the ambience of the space (house) which the songs will inhabit, introducing us to the synth patterns configured by Simon Weaver which define the sound of much of the album and empathise with Katherine's musical and literary personality. And yet, the unifying force of the album orbits around Katherine's ability to conjure an almost tangible sense of place and/or a special moment in time through poignant, potent imagery. Her voice fairly runs its fingers through your mind as the almost dreamlike folk-pastoral sensuality of Selah (an enigmatic name that may or may not be a reference to a Hebrew word for "forever") brings an irresistible evocation of a moon-lover, moonlight and raindrops cocooned in a swooning, swirling backdrop of strings, synth and gentle percussion.
The meltingly sensuous metaphysical poetry of Selah is a hard act to follow, but Katherine maintains a consistent level of creative expression over the rest of the album. First House On The Left is full of the atmospheric ambience of the house where Katherine grew up, its events and occupants over the years and powerful memories. The sub-theme of the pendulum swing as it affects and conditions relationships is explored on several songs - the tenderly heartbreaking These Words Of Mine; the galloping, purposeful momentum of Does She Hold You Like I Did? (Marcus Hamblett's trumpet imparting an almost spaghetti-western feel); the constant vacillation of love's conflicting desires and strong emotions in Northern Sunrise ("We don't fall in love, we rise"); the bittersweet, resigned reflection of Anyway, Always; and the album's parting-shot Ready To Go, a lovely banjo-flecked waltzer (and co-write with George Boomsma who duets with Katherine here as well as contributing backing vocals elsewhere on the album). Finally, Father Of Two and Walnut Shell deal with family issues and memories.
Katherine writes in her liner note: "I wanted to create an album that felt lived in… and in doing that, I hope I've created something that others feel welcome to inhabit for a little while. Please make yourself at home." IMHO, she's certainly achieved that.
David Kidman
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| Katie Powderly: Live By The Song, Die By The Song | Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog: Mynd â'r t? am dro' (Taking the house for a walk) |
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