One Little Indian

Released: February 22




Williams’ eighth album has a seductive autumnal chill to it, conjuring images of rain-dappled orange leaves and slowly diffusing mist. It’s also pleasingly simple in its arrangements and execution. Most songs, such as the twisting ‘Winter is Sharp’ and cantering opening track ’50 White Lines’, are rooted in acoustic finger-picking and sparingly, expertly embellished with droning fiddle, xylophone and drums. The latter, which opens with the sound of rainfall and features a counting male voice submerged in the mix, is a particularly effective sound picture.

Often, however, things get a little too tasteful. ‘Wanting and Waiting’, although perfectly lovely with its mix of jaunty banjo strumming and Williams’ airy voice, drifts past the listener in such an untroubled, self-satisfied way it might as well be the soundtrack to an advert featuring bloated women using their handbags as metaphors for bowel trouble. Really, it’s not Williams’ fault that her musical style of sweetly lachrymose folk-jazz, has been high jacked by media ‘creatives’ looking to attach a sense of pastoral calm to their products. But while, lyrically, songs like ‘Just Leave’ and ‘Smoke’ deal with difficult, emotionally charged situations, the music remains as placid and still as water in a stagnant pond.

As a whole, the music on The Quickening is accomplished and pleasant but almost entirely without edge and, like the emotionally absent lover Williams’ describes in ’Smoke’, it feels almost as if, should you reach out to it, it would evaporate through your fingers like morning mist.

Posted In Album Reviews, Feb 09 2010. Words - Richard