Description

Kathryn Williams – Hypoxia

9 track album inspired by Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. Out on CD and vinyl.

“A collection of rare eloquence and spectacular beauty…few listeners will remain unmoved” – The Herald

“As emotionally gripping as it is sonically explorative” – 8/10 Uncut Magazine

The project’s origins came in 2013 when Kathryn received a call from New Writing North asking if she would accept an open commission to write something about Plath for the Durham Book Festival’s celebration of her life and work, commemorating the 50th anniversary of The Bell Jar’s publication. Excited, but also somewhat intimidated by the prospect, Kathryn quickly realised that trying to write song lyrics for poems without using the actual poems or referencing them was going to be nigh on impossible, and, as time passed, what had seemed like a gift of making her own brief, turned to dread and foreboding as she desperately tried to find a way into the material.

Sonically the album utilises textures first explored by Kathryn on her Adrian Utley produced project, ‘The Pond’ (2011). There are surprises to be found here too, like the dramatic glam rock guitars that suddenly erupt in lead single ‘Mirrors’ and in Kathryn’s deliciously idiosyncratic lyrics & delivery; her gentle voice loaded with an underlying edge that was always there but has never seemed more apposite.

Tracklist:
1. Electric
2. Mirrors
3. Battleships
4. Cuckoo
5. Beating Heart
6. Tango With Marco
7. When Nothing Meant Less
8. The Mind Is Its Own Place
9. Part Of Us.