Namer Of Clouds - Kitty Macfarlane (21/09/18)
- Artist: Kitty Macfarlane
- Release Date: 21st September, 2018
- Genre: Singer-Songwriter, Folk, Contemporary Folk
- Record Label: Navigator Records
- Tracks: 11
- Website: http://www.kittymacfarlane.com/
"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.