Kathryn Williams 'Leave to Remain' album

UK cult sweetheart and Mercury Prize nominee, Kathryn Williams, comes to the US this September to bring her intense soft-expressions to the East and West coasts. “Leaves to Remain”, out this Fall on Cheap Lullaby records, is her first US release and these two special shows are America’s fortunate live introduction to the hauntingly beautiful melodies and lyrics contained therein.

Back in the ‘70s the soul DJs would call it a ‘Quiet Storm’... a slow, superficially mellow song that, when listened to at night, with a loved one, or alone, would punch way above its weight, and reveal itself as louder than a bomb. Kathryn Williams evokes those Quiet Storm ballads, inclined to expose more grandiose gestures.

Kathryn Williams may not be trying to make Big Art. But, for many of us, the art she makes it as big as it gets.

Its to do with the immensity of softly-expressed passions. Her ability to take an everyday observation and weave it into a song that breaks your heart, with a voice that instinctively understands the power of restraint, of intimacy, of melody that drifts like thought.

On Kathryn's sixth album and her first US release, ‘Leave To Remain’ is set to release this fall on Cheap Lullaby Records. For US audiences the album is an introduction to an artist that has “Kath addicts” abroad. The 32-year-old- singer, guitarist and songwriter has been associated throughout her seven year recording career - which began with 1999’s ‘Dog Leap Stairs‘, legendarily made for the princely sum of £80 - with the English folk-pop tradition of Nick Drake, Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention, Kath’s happy to own up to her love of Americana.

“Leave To Remain” is her first release since her 2004’s covers album ‘Relations‘, a period which included the appearance of 2005’s excellent ‘Over Fly Over’ album. The new record was recorded over the last few months in Newcastle, Glasgow and London. It reckons back to 2001’s ‘Little Black Numbers‘, the extraordinary second Williams album that bagged a Mercury Music Prize nomination. Indeed, ‘Leave To Remain’ is, according to the ever self-critical Kath, ‘The one where, if it wasn’t my voice, I could probably listen to it.’

After firstly planning ‘Leave To Remain’ as a stark affair featuring her core band of Dave Scott (guitar) and Laura Reid (cello, keyboards), the Liverpool-born and Newcastle-based Kath brought onboard one Kate St John, former woodwind maestro of The Dream Academy, and string and woodwind arranger for the likes of Van Morrison and Roger Eno. She and Kath met when St John provided the arrangements for 2000’s Nick Drake tribute concert at The Barbican, where Kath made her first major live appearance.

The pair got together with producer Darius Kedros and set about shining a bluer, fuller light on Kath’s music... using a mini-orchestra of woodwind and string players, casting these haunting and increasingly sophisticated songs in hues that carry the unmistakable tang of classic ‘60s American pop, in a Jimmy Webb/Burt Bacharach vein.

“Leaves to Remain” arrives at a point where singer-songwriters are big business, and where a folk revival, of sorts is afoot. Does Kathryn Williams finally fit in? Well, this is her first album to come out in America and she will be ever involved with her US fans by appearing on our shores and touring for the first time.

The album contains hauntingly orchestral tunes that showcase the singer's intense yet intimate lyricism. -CMJ

“Beautiful and intense- her best album yet” - The Observer

“Glittering Talent” - The Independent

“In years to come, I’ll look back at the records I’ve made and not have any regrets. They’re small, sketchy pieces. I’m not trying to make Big Art”’ - Kathryn Williams

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Kathryn Williams - Leave to Remain