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Track Listings
| 1. 50 White Lines |
| 2. Just a Feeling |
| 3. Winter Is Sharp |
| 4. Wanting and Waiting |
| 5. Black Oil |
| 6. Just Leave |
| 7. Smoke |
| 8. Cream of the Crop |
| 9. There Are Keys |
| 10. Noble Guesses |
| 11. Little Lesson |
| 12. Up North |
Product Description
Review
The Quickening was made in four days, and recorded live by a group of musicians who had not heard Williams’ songs before they arrived in the studio. They brought with them a range of strange instruments – marimubulas, banduras, markosphones and cajons joining the usual arsenal of guitars and marimbas. Put together, they give this record a directness and fullness that bolsters Williams’ handling of lyrical mystery.
50 White Lines, a song about the night journeys of an artist on tour, becomes a beautiful, mythical epic. “If I can drive through this town I can vanish,” sings Williams, as thumb pianos and xylophones ring like bold bells. Elsewhere, the band adds different colours and shadows to the music. Black Oil’s tale of sunflowers in the evening holds both magic and menace, as the bass notes of a piano ring out and drums echo softly, while Just a Feeling plays with listeners’ minds, its hurdy gurdys and dark rhythms clashing with Williams’ pretty melody, telling us how “sad songs don’t sound so sad in the sun”. There Are Keys is even more sinister and strange; its opening electronic crackle gives way to a thick tangle of steel strings, stories about “pylons on stiletto toes”, and images of clockwork birds that won’t wake up.
With every play, The Quickening becomes more impressive, reminding you of the rich songcraft of Elvis Costello, and Kate Bush’s last album, Aerial, particularly in the way that it sounds so accessible but yet so peculiar. She deserves to belong in this canon, and we should savour Williams’ talent – a soft soul with hard edges, who shows us how quietness can resound so loudly. --Jude Rogers
Find more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
Customer Reviews
I know people get annoyed if you pay too much attention to the lyrics, but hers are always reliably interesting; unlike so many female singer-songwriters or performers dominating the airwaves these days (who seem to overcompensate for a lack of authentic individuality with forced eccentricity), KW's feel natural and unpretentious. There are some great one-liners: "Watch you in my lunchtime / like a silent matinee show" or "The nerves down my arms hit like sparks". She loves similes!
The first track - 50 White Lines - is fantastic, with its jaunty rhythm and mechanical counting of the recorded voice. Winter is Sharp is also more quickly paced than the others (I never understood why Guardian journalists complain about her music being too one-paced and maudlin - it's not!). Kate St John, who was musical director for the phenomenal Nick Drake tribute concerts in January this year, produced the album with KW and plays accordion and hurdy gurdy. Neill MacColl, who was a session musician at the same shows and collaborated with KW on the last album, contributes banjo (which sounds great!), mandolin, and guitar playing.
The doll's house on the cover and the miniature figures which inhabit the pictures inside reflect a love of the small world, of detail & domesticity that you can hear in her music, too. The album hasn't quite managed to replace Little Black Numbers, Over Fly Over or Old Low Light in my affections yet, and there are two tracks which I couldn't warm to as much as the others (Little Lesson, Up North).
She's playing London's Purcell Room on 6 March and before that Manchester, Glasgow, and Newcastle.
Standouts (IMHO): 50 White Lines, Wanting and Waiting, Noble Guesses, Just Leave
most accessible and best album. Read more
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