In the space of just a few years, Priddy has gone from low key gigs around Birmingham, to having two charting albums, supporting Suzanne Vega and headlining her own major venue tour. Now comes the third album, These Frightening Machines, one that sees her further expanding her musical range and embracing genres beyond contemporary folk, taking in extensive use of synths and electronics alongside the organic instruments.
Fuelled by having suffered an unspecified medical condition that brought home the fragility of the female body, the songs span from anger and despair to hope, longing and even lust, they are expressions of solidarity and love, reclaiming the voices of women silenced by history, as they confront illness, disconnection, the vulnerability and importance of relationships, and, as she transitioned into her 30s, the general ache of growing older and not always wiser. Joining her this time, musical guests include Richard Walters of Landscape fame and singer/songwriter Torres with multi-instrumentalist Ben Christophers featuring on most of the tracks.
It lights the fuse with ‘Matches’, opening with drone and the sound effect of one being struck, a hollow repeated drum pattern underpinning the musical atmospherics and Priddy on glockenspiel and bouzouki, sung with a traditional styled intimate vocal, it’s a feminist anthem that takes its cue from the persecution of witches, often seeing them burned at the stake. But, as the sound and intensity build it becomes clear the thematic agenda is wider (“They weren’t burning witches – it was women on those fires”), addressing the way women throughout the ages have been vilified, falsely accused and killed by men, both idolising and threatened by them “they kissed our mouths and bound our legs”), intimidated by their intelligence (“You never stopped to think we’d learn to fly”) as she sings “I’ve been worshiped and abhorred/They loved me for my voice until it conjured up false storms”, sounding a call to empowerment it warns “Don’t they know that we have matches, too”.
Her soft and tender voice the aural equivalent of having your ears stroked by a velvet brush, the (truncated) slow walking title track with Soren Bryce on violin was written during a prolonged period of ill health, one which affected her sense of self within her body as a whole and more specifically as a woman, the nightmare captured in the lines “A passenger at my own wheel/It’s hard to be tied to a body that tried/To erase what I needed to feel/Like a woman”. But it also speaks to anyone whatever gender who has had similar experiences of illness or trauma and the disassociation between your mind and body when you’ve lost control of your physical self, feeling trapped inside a malfunctioning, self-sabotaging machine (“All these levers and systems won’t do as they’re told anymore I’m having to learn/That these frightening machines aren’t as tough as they seem”).
Bearing shades of Joni Mitchell, with rockier drums Jim Barr on bass and Patrick Pearson’s electric piano, the scales-descending ‘Sirius’, pointedly named for the brightest star in the sky, is a song of support for those who have been “drifting out much more than you’ve been tuning in” and have been having a run of romantic bad luck (“You say it’s looking up, that Lady Luck Is going to turn your world around/Then give yourself to guys who spend their lives with their eyes/Firmly on the ground”), encouraging that “something out there’s calling you …you’ve no idea/Just how much you brighten someone’s sky” and to “Just remember someone out there’s looking up to you”.
Warmed by Simon Dobson’s trumpet, ‘Hurricane’ finds her shifting into a sultry bossa nova, the bare bones coming from taking shelter from a tornado in Nashville and listening to the sirens outside and developing into a metaphor for a love that is both irresistible and destructive, leaving havoc in its wake (“You spilt the milk, I lapped it up I let the push become a shove/and told myself this must be love …Let me tell you … you’ll only know he’s hit you when the lights go down”) and “you won’t hear the sirens ‘til the walls give out”. Here too is how victims of abuse often find it hard to free themselves as she sings “you ground my heart into the floor (like you always do) Still I’m crawling back for more (like I’ve done before)”.
Torres on backing vocals and Maddie Cutter on cello, the whispery ‘Madeleine’ addresses the often male industry manufactured rivalry between female singers (“by mistake or design/They’ve made you feel the limelight can’t be yours as well as mine/It’s an art how they keep our names apart”), leaving them “scared to lose the apples if we dare upset the cart”, as she pleads “Don’t let them make us strangers/There’s room for two Madeleine”. To the best of my knowledge she’s never shared a bill with anyone of that name.
The longest track at almost six minutes, the steadily pulsing, liltingly sung ‘Atlas’ with its brushed snares and yet more trumpet draws on the figure in Greek mythology literally carrying the world on his shoulders to serve as a metaphor for those weighed down by burdens (“you don’t have to do this on your own”), keeping weakness to yourself (“buckle, bend when no one’s watching”) but not being stoical (“don’t be afraid to say that your back is breaking/You don’t have to do this on your own… drop your ego/Say you’re tired and let me take you home”) because while “you can’t fix all that’s been broken” you need to let your voice be heard (“you were not made to spend your days kneeling/It’s time to stand and say what I know you’re feeling”).
With a tinkling backdrop that includes Patrick Pearson on saxophone and recorder and Marley Ellis on flute, the softly swelling ‘A Matter Of Time’ is, as it suggests, concerned with the passing of the years (“A decade swings by/Like the sand that keeps slipping through hands”), and the need to seize the day (“Drive off into your years/Hard on the gas…there’s no need to look in a mirror/Can’t dwell on what’s passed”) because, as she points out, “the thing is with life/It’s just a matter of time…and we’ll never be this young again”.
Fingerpicked guitar guides you to a seat at ‘Table Four’ where you’ll find violinist Will Harvey and cellist Heather Truesdall adding their musical souls to another song that touches on growing older (“I’m proud to say I made it out alive I got away and clocked a fair few miles”), the pressures of her chosen career (“some days it feels like I’ve been/Living fast and chasing day dreams/Now they’re catching up with me/Late nights and new faces/Names attached to distance places”) and the siren call of home (“everywhere I’ve gone I’ve had a small town on my mind/You can try to run from where you’ve come from/But you can’t leave it behind”). Here she confesses “I know I fall in love too easy/Spread myself a little thinly/Give too much and be left wanting more” and that while “now and then I’ve weighed up quitting” she “never could resist an open door”. It ends returning to the title with “save a seat at table four/ Cos I’m not running anymore/ I’ve closed the chapter, locked the door/I know you’ve heard this all before/Believe me/Leaving isn’t easy”.
Featuring co-writer George Boomsma on acoustic guitars and mandolin, Will Harvey on violin and viola, Truesdall’s cello, Walters on harmonies and a brief but soaring guitar solo by Christophers, the slow waltzing, strings-brushed sway of ‘I’m Always Willing’, a thoughts of home road song about realising what matters (“sleeping alone/Waking up aching/I work to the bone/Rinse and repeat again/Thinking of home/Where you’ll be waiting/Or maybe you won’t… I swear I’m coming home/You say the word/I would trade everything/Diamonds for dirt/To be in your arms again”), is the sort of thing you want to hear as you drift off to sleep to the words “I’ll try to do love right/ I’m not always able I’m always willing”.
Featuring bowed guitar by Christophers, it ends opening on distant piano notes and rising to an anthemic bells ringing finale with ‘Could This Be Enough?’, an aching nature image filled reverie about making it through life’s seasons as “we make the best of what we’re given/Far from hell but not quite heaven” and taking the time to look inward (“Think I’ve been adrift too long/To notice what I’m doing wrong/Close my eyes to steer my breathing”, the sensuality of “unmade sheets and salted skin” offset by a metaphor of “bedrooms where the damp’s set in”. Conjuring the rush and splintering of the heart’s stirrings (“love can’t always last the Winter/If only we were evergreen/Instead of August’s fever dream”), she asks “when did we both stop believing?” but also “could this be enough for love?”. The final transcendent line sums up both the song and the album’s underlying self-reflections with the simple “I’ve come to accept that perhaps part of being human is being a perpetual work in progress”. Long may she continue to refine that process with such finesse.
Mike Davies
Artist’s website: www.katherinepriddy.com
‘Hurricane’ – official video:
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