Kathryn Williams and Neill MacColl, City Varieties, Leeds
Kathryn William Carlos Williams is poorly. "He gave me it," she sniffs, glancing across at Neill MacColl. "That's wherefore we're non speaking. I might do a deal where you catch 20p indorse every time I blow my nose." A few feet out, MacColl - boy of legendary ballad maker Ewan - rolls his eyes towards the ceiling. The grippe whitethorn make left Hank Williams sounding "like Bonnie Tyler", only the adhesion between the 2 modern folks titans is obvious. "We wrote this when we were inebriate," MacColl introduces ace birdsong. "You can't remember, throne you?" Sir Bernard Williams doesn't answer - not because they ar really not speaking, merely because her nose is exploding into a succession of tissues. She lastly approaches the microphone. "20p!" she splutters.
It is an unusual gig, because the songs so perfectly showcased on the coaction album, Two, audibly suffer from Williams's bug. However, with the audience volition her on and the singer perchance gaining an undefinable dimension from being "highschool on Benylin", it is curiously compelling.With MacColl's wondrous languid guitar style, melodies crash softly like waves on a beach as Hiram Williams - sipping perpetually from a chump - recovers something of her usual deception for the cover girl Blue William Claude Dukenfield and a haunting report of Big Star's XIII. She puts genuine ira into Gray Goes, a hook-laden song roughly being dumped. Innocent When You Dream is almost as terrifically croaky as when Tom Waits sings it. However, the girlfriend is clearly hurt and it is a miracle that she makes it through the fishgig at whole. Hauled back for an encore when she should be tucked up in bed, her spokesperson eventually cracks during Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.Deafening appreciation mingles with her sneezes, and she manages a final sputter: "How much do I owe you now?"· At the Junction, Cambridge University (01223 511511), tonight. Then touring.
