with Charlotte Carpenter
Reviewed by Phil Taylor (see his Music Observer blog here)
Katherine Priddy is a rare gem of a musician: able to stop you in your tracks with the powerful purity of her voice alone; able to capture in a few choice words the essence of a season, a memory, an intangible feeling just beyond reach; and able to cross boundaries, fusing elements of timeless folk music with modern themes, and broad influences.
I’m sure that’s why Katherine has seen her music reaching ever further and wider. It’s why more and more festival bookers, radio stations and journalists are keen to get to know her. And why Jools Holland invited her onto his BBC show at the end of 2024.
Katherine’s second album, The Pendulum Swing, is now over a year old but she’s still touring it at sold-out venues, mixing its songs – which tell of maturing and moving on and the “push and pull” of life – with older ones, and fresh material, too. (You can read more about the album, and Katherine’s reflections on it, here). On her current UK tour, Katherine has spent plenty of time in the East Midlands, stopping in Nottingham, Stamford and now, Leicester.
Her choice of support artist was a great one: Charlotte Carpenter, a local singer-songwriter who “creates poetic, intense, beautifully dramatic music and words; and she invests fully, putting her whole self into that art” (read my full interview with her here and MIL’s review of one of her previous gigs here).
Charlotte performed a half-hour solo set, just her and her guitar, which meant she leant heavily on her vocals – nothing to worry about there. She always sounds sublime and is clearly fully committed and focused from start to end. She mentioned how the last time she performed at The Y Theatre (a great one, by the way) it was empty – she was using it for her lockdown live streams.
Charlotte’s two opening songs (Spinning Plates and Fine Line, from her most recent album) shared a similar chugging riff, overlaid with honest lyrics. The second of those songs gave a sense of growling intensity, with rising volumes, forceful and attitude-filled.
She then moved into a section of “dystopian” or “apocalyptic” songs – one of which was You’re My Reason Why. If ever a song combined pain and love so precisely, it’s this one: the theme is of a love so strong it could take you through the end of the world. Truly beautiful.
Charlotte tested a new song with us, too: You look free and I’m not plays on what she described as her obsession with the character of “a female robot coming to Earth”.
The rest of the set included the wonderful Dolores, performed as a subtly toned-down version but no less beautiful and building to a wonderful energy; and the much more energetic Like A Hurricane which took on a rock-and-roll, Americana vibe and was a good example of the other elements to Charlotte’s music.
I’m glad Katherine Priddy picked Charlotte to open for her. Hopefully she will have gained plenty more fans after her performance which exuded her trademark quiet confidence, modest but grounded and outward-facing.
I always enjoy a gig at a theatre venue for the novelty of ice cream during the interval (the Y has some great options) so I felt well set up for Katherine Priddy’s set. She took to the stage along with George Boomsma, her long-time collaborator and a wonderful artist in his own right, and opened the set with Does She Hold You Like I Did. It’s a relatively pacey song and showed off Katherine’s guitar-picking skills. It captivated the audience from the first note, and with the entry of her pinpoint vocals the atmosphere intensified. As the last resonant head-voice note died it was clear that we’d all be hanging on every word tonight.
This gig turned into the kind that’s actually quite difficult to write up; the kind where you quickly run out of superlatives. I’ve seen Katherine a few times before, and have never witnessed her falter. But tonight she seemed particularly relaxed and confident.
Her set spanned and mixed up many parts of her comprehensive back catalogue. Her earlier material was sprinkled through the setlist. Songs such as Icarus and Wolf and, of course, Eurydice, sounded full of light and sparkle, with chiming chords and pure, close-to-the-heart vocals.
The more recent songs from her album came across as more developed and deeply personal. First House on the Left was warm and relatable, telling a very human story of the relationships we can build with a physical home as it becomes infused with memories; Northern Sunrise, despite being “just a little love song”, combined trad-folk melodies and harmonies (courtesy of George) with remarkable subtly to create an embracing soundscape; Anyway, Always was soaring and beautiful, flowing smoothly as silk; and Father of Two, which Katherine prefaced with stories of her father, was incredibly moving.
One section of this performance I had particularly been looking forward to featured two songs written with Poet Laureate Simon Armitage. Close Season involved looking back to the frozen wastes of winter, and the opening sequence filled with dark foreboding was highly impactful, bringing the song alive even more effectively than the recorded version. The song was followed by its natural partner, Daybreaker which has a great lyrical development, as the music builds, floating and widening to a natural and very rich climax.
Closer to the end of the set, Letters From a Travelling Man – which edged towards “jaunty”, as Katherine described it – allowed George to show his prowess on the guitar and made me long for a full band show where these songs could be expanded on more (this LDN Features session shows some of the potential).
I’ve seen a trend recently where artists dispose, in different ways, with the typical encore routine and the pantomime of the false ending. Katherine did this, explaining warmly but firmly that she would be playing two more songs and that would be all – the right decision in this setting I think. Those two were the rich and mature Wolf and Ready To Go, which is also the closer to her second album. It’s one she wrote jointly with George, sung in close harmony; it’s one of those heart-tugging, gentle ballads which muse on life, the passage of time and fading light.
This was a performance full of crystalline moments – gems stepping out of time – and also a truly shared experience. It was all about immersion in music and the auras of energy which surround that art form, collecting experiences and emotions with unfathomable magic.
We were all grateful to Katherine for visiting Leicester and allowing us to share some very special moments together.
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