The light fantastic

For somebody whose songs often plumb very stormy emotional depths, Kathryn Williams sounds decidedly calm. Not that I’m expecting a frazzled, nervous wreck, mind, but the extremely likeable Liverpuddlian is the antithesis of emotional distress. Or maybe, she’s still half asleep. Afterall, it is only 10am on a Friday morning, and everybody knows musicians rarely surface before noon.

Williams has enjoyed considerable success of late. Her latest album, Old Low Light has been almost universally heralded as a stunningly beautiful record. Its immediate predecessor, Little Black Numbers, was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, and saw Williams move from independent to major label. However, she maintains that the success of Little Black Numbers didn’t hugely change the way she approached her latest record.

“I think if I’d won the Mercury, it would have,” she muses. “It was great because we went to the Mercury Music Prize night, met loads of famous people and I felt like Cinderella. But then I just went back to my normal life and there was no pressure on me to make something as good. I just got stuck into writing and had some fun in the studio, and this is what happened.”

Does working for a major label make any difference?

“It makes a difference because you have to wait a bit longer for the album to come out,” she sighs. “But because this album and the last one are licensed from my own label, I get to make it without anyone hearing it and then I deliver the finished product to the record label.”

When asked to compare Old Low Light with her previous work, her first observation is that most of the songs were recorded live with a full complement of musicians, it has “much more of a band feel to it”. That’s not the only difference, though.

“When I made Old Low Light, I really thought I was making this happy, upbeat, commercial album,” she laughs, ”until it came out and the press and everyone was calling it my darkest album to date. So my opinion of it doesn’t necessarily have to be anyone else’s.”

The songs seem to this listener, for the most part, to be concerned with relationships and their breakdown. Are they mostly drawn from personal experience or does Kathryn give herself wide artistic licence?

“A bit of both,” she says. “I am a writer so I tend to use my imagination. Some of them are about my life or they’ll be about situations that I’ve been in, but I might try to see it from someone else’s point of view or to completely create characters.”

Should she find the perfect relationship would she be worried that her well of songs might dry up? As ever, my timing is perfect.

”I got married last year and I’m very happy,” she laughs, putting that notion to rest very quickly. “But you know if you’re feeling down, don’t you think happy songs are just the worst things to hear? I think I’ve got a very happy life and it could be down to writing sadder songs. It’s like a photographer who would never photograph in summer because of the light: I prefer the autumn and winter seasons when it comes to songwriting.”

Despite her relative success to date, Williams isn’t in this business for royalty cheques alone: her goal is something more substantial.

“Most people want to sell lots and lots of records because that’s a sign of success,” she muses. “But you could sell lots of records and people might still only listen to your album once. To me, that’s not a success. What I’d like is for people to buy the album, listen to it and have it as part of their own soundtrack.”