“Time and tide wait for no man,” so the saying goes. But ever since her
EP, Tide & Time, came out in 2016, many have been waiting expectantly to
hear Somerset singer-songwriter Kitty Macfarlane’s debut album. On September
21 the wait will be over as this fine young acoustic artist unveils the
beguiling release ‘Namer Of Clouds.’ Produced by fellow musicians Sam Kelly
and Jacob Stoney and released on Navigator Records, this is a captivating
album.
Her sharply observed narrative songs are pure poetry, rich with visual imagery
and written with an eco-eye – woven loosely together into a theme of
mankind’s relationship with the wild. Gathering inspiration from the sky to
the seabed, Kitty’s lyrics touch on intervention and rewilding, climate
change and migration and one singular song which is a magical aural tapestry of
woman’s historical relationship with textiles and the land. The album is
augmented by all kinds of ‘found sound’ recorded in locations from Somerset
to Sardinia – birdsong, waterfalls, the click of knitting needles- and is
bookended by sounds of the wild.
Recorded partly at The Cube near Truro in Cornwall and partly at Get Real Audio
in Bath, ‘Namer Of Clouds’ features not just the clear, confident voice and
finger-picked guitar of Macfarlane but also the in-demand Radio 2 Folk Awards
‘Horizon’ award winner Sam Kelly on guitar, mandolin and harmony vocals,
with some of his talented Lost Boys band members also on the roll
call –Graham Coe on cello, Archie Churchill-Moss on melodeon and Jamie
Francis, surprisingly not on his trademark banjo, but on electric guitar.
Kitty was a semi-finalist in the BBC Young Folk Award. More recently she has
supported Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman on tour, as well as Blair Dunlop.
Now the Bristol-based performer is coming into her own with some remarkably
mature songwriting, a marked empathy with the environment and a strong sense of
place. Cerebral and classy, honest and immediate, these are not throwaway lyrics
or everyday melodies but thought-provoking and
evocative compositions with wonderfully crafted soundscapes.
