Music > Live Reviews

Scott Matthews & Kathryn Williams

The Adrian Flux Waterfront

15/11/16

I have to admit that, almost as soon as this gig was announced, the date was written into my diary. Albums by both Liverpool born Kathryn Williams and Black Country singer songwriter Scott Matthews have been in my collection for almost a decade now. Despite this, I had not actually seen Matthews play live until his visit to Norwich Arts Centre two years ago, and similarly Williams' appearance at The Bicycle Shop in April of this year.

With two such accomplished artists on the same bill, I naively assumed that this show at The Waterfront Studio would be a co-headliner. In actual fact it was part of an 18 date UK tour following a month of European appearances by Matthews and his band. Williams is supporting on just over half of the UK dates, with Ady Johnson playing the remaining dates. This becomes apparent when I arrive at the venue and check the set times. Williams gets the standard thirty minute opening slot, whilst Scott and his band get to play the full hour and a half. Not that I have in any way been misled, nor let down. I have just failed to do my homework.

Kathryn Williams has just released her thirteenth album, a collaboration of re-worked jazz standards with vibraphone player Anthony Kerr, and tracks off it are to be premiered at The Lexington in London in just a few days time. Tonight, though, is a set that concentrates on her last two releases, 2013's Crown Electric and last year's Hypoxia – the commissioned work based on the tragic life of The Bell Jar author, Sylvia Plath.

The songs are haunting, and the voice is simply beautiful, but Williams readily admits to stage nerves, and there are times tonight when it shows. She breathes in audibly during the introduction to Beating Heart, one of the most moving songs from Hypoxia, and still makes a minor mistake for which which she gently curses herself. Yet she ambitiously tackles the vocal looping in Mirrors, and wisely re-positions the capo one fret downwards for her final song, Crown Electric's The Known.  She concedes that it has been a difficult week, with political events in the US and the passing of her hero Leonard Cohen, but resists the opportunity to reprise her cover of Hallelujah which had been featured on several recent media tributes. I believe that would have been simply too emotional a way in which to end a support set.

Scott Matthews takes the stage alone, and after a brief guitar tuning session that incorporates an ad-libbed theme from Close Encounters of The Third Kind, he starts with Virginia, the opening track from 2014's Home – Part 1. The three piece band of bass player, drummer and second guitar then join him, and he performs Drifter from the recently released sequel, the aptly named Home – Part 2. The two albums have been self-produced and recorded in Matthews' own studio, and whilst the two are sonically very different on record, they marry up seamlessly when performed on stage with a live band.

Together with tracks from his previous albums the set showcases Matthew's liquid vocals and the sensitivity and honesty of his lyrics and songwriting. True, he does tend to be rather over-attentive to his guitar re-tuning between songs (something I remember from his solo show at the Arts Centre two years ago). When alternating between two acoustics, an electric and a twelve-string one does wonder whether a guitar tech might not aid the fluidity of the performance. The overall sound is also at times rather compressed, and a couple of loud notes threaten to take on a life of their own and develop into full-blown feedback. The Waterfront Studio is not always the easiest acoustic space to harness, and whilst the turnout for a Monday evening is quite impressive, the venue is by no means full. Perhaps this has resulted in a mix that has erred on the side of caution in order to eliminate any sense of emptiness?

Personal highlights included the two songs from 2011's What The Night Delivers – Bad Apple and the gorgeous Obsession Never Sleeps, and I loved some of the new songs such as The Rush and Where I Long To Be, but I have to be honest and say that, by the end of ninety minutes it was still the stirring Dream Song and the beautiful Elusive from his 2006 debut Passing Stranger that still did it for me.

A generous set by Scott Matthews, and obviously appreciated by the audience, but I still left feeling slightly disappointed not to have heard more from the equally talented Kathryn Williams. Perhaps I need to get myself down to The Lexington next week after all.