Kathryn Williams & Neill MacColl
Nottingham Rescue Rooms
16th April, 2008

No obvious traces of traditional folk attach to singer-songwriter Kathryn Williams’ half-dozen albums. But the best of her laconic self-penned lyrics have the deceptive simplicity of folk – Come With Me, from the latest disc, sounds creepier each time you play it. She and Neill MacColl offered an extended stroll through their first recording, MacColl uniting sensitive vocal harmonies with superior guitar picking. Frame, Armchair, Blue Fields and Holes In Your Life were diverse samples of Williams’ craft, Grey Goes – with its quirky pulse, bowed guitar and electric devices – the creepiest. With Williams adding thumb piano, MacColl took the lead on Tom Waits’ Innocent When You Dream. It fitted into the overall light and shade as effectively as their second encore: Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Whether or not Kathryn’s recent cold played a part, this produced her only fortissimo. All the same, an essentially intimate duo held their listeners throughout.