KATHRYN WILLIAMS – Hypoxia (One Little Indian/Caw TPLP1263CD)

HypoxiaAs anyone who has read her poetry will know, Sylvia Plath was not someone to whom you would turn for light, uplifting escapism. Suffering from clinical depression for most of her life, less than a year after separating from husband and fellow poet Ted Hughes, following his adultery, Plath stuck her head in an oven and committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. A month prior to this, she had published her only novel, under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas (it would not be credited to Plath for a further four years), The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical work about one Esther Greenwood, dealing with themes of female social identity, oppressive patriarchy, mental illness and suicide, which has become regarded as a classic of modern literature.

In 2013, New Writing North commissioned Williams to write something about Plath for the Durham Book Festival’s celebrations marking the novel’s 50th anniversary. Her re-reading the book, led to the performance of five songs at Durham Town Hall last October in company with writer and Plath biographer Andrew Wilson. However, that was not to be the end of it. Finding herself caught up with the characters, Williams continued to explore them in song, culminating in a further three numbers. Taking all eight into the studio with friend, producer and engineer Ed Harcourt (who also provides harmonies), she emerged with this album, its title referring (clearly metaphorically) to an insufficient supply of oxygen supply, a ninth song, ‘Cuckoo’, adding itself to the total courtesy of a Harcourt collaboration.

As you might imagine, it’s not an easy listen, the imagery frequently dark, the music, largely encompassing (sometimes treated) acoustic and electric guitars, bass and piano with atmospheric use of sound effects, often as spare and edgy as it is melodic.

The woozy, shimmering opening track, ‘Electric’, is a deceptively pretty, sweetly sung number that actually alludes to ECT, an electroconvulsive therapy used to shock patients out of depressive states. Things then shift into musically experimental territory with the bluesy trip-hop ‘Mirrors’, shuffling, percussive scratchy loops providing a backdrop to brief forays of heavy piano and fractured guitars, Williams’ vocal looping reflecting the thematic idea of Esther’s identity beginning to fragment.

The tension coils in the cobwebby feel of the spooked, pulsingly minimalist ‘Battleships’, a reference to the classic grid guessing game where you seek to destroy your opponent’s fleet, the lyrics talking of the ticking time bomb of the mind and featuring the striking line about how a poem “stuck like sick in my throat”.

Written from the perspective of Esther’s emotionally wounded mother, ‘Cuckoo’ is a dreamy, keyboards-based number that speaks of how she feels her unconditional love has been taken for granted (“when you got hurt you ran to your dad, you were never someone I felt I had”), that she no longer truly knows her child (“I couldn’t pick you out in a crowd”) and how she thinks she will be held responsible for Esther’s illness “my little girl’s gone mad and who will they blame but me?”).

The delicately sung ‘Beating Heart’, brushed by hushed guitar and distant piano and with the repeated refrain of “I am, I am, I am, I am”, introduces themes of suicide as Esther recalls how her attempts to kill herself have been confounded by her body’s determination to survive. The brooding ‘Tango With Marco’ is a specific reference to a key incident in the novel, where Esther’s blind date with the misogynistic Marco culminates in attempted rape (“if I shout out in pain, you’d call it a good fuck” whispers Williams), the experience evoked by the contrast between romantic Spanish guitar and the jittery percussion.

Heading into the final stretch, the bass underpinned ‘When Nothing Meant Less’ is a sparsely arranged poignant confessional, resigned reflection on two lives that, one measured against each other, have gone separate but similar ways, both experiencing mental collapse and suicide attempts (“I read about the time you took some pills, you balanced on a ledge”) , the protagonist noting how “when you thought I was strong, I always knew you were wrong. I always balanced on the edge.” However, unlike Esther, the friend appears to have overcome her problems, as she sings “I don’t even know how your story ends, ‘cos you turned a corner and I stayed on the bend.”

The album’s only uptempo track, with its soaring vocals ‘The Mind Has Its Own Place’ is a piano-led, brushed drums carnival waltzing call to sisterhood arms to rise above sexism and the expectations and demands of patriarchal society, even if only by retreating into your own mind and self.   Carrying over that note and shifting musical ground, the album comes to a beautiful, reflective and cathartic close, with the country-flavoured dreamily waltz ‘Part Of Us’, Williams softly crooning that “you don’t have to be alone, misunderstood, ‘cos I read a book last night and I felt loved, loneliness was never a part of us.” Whether you’ve read The Bell Jar or not, these sentiments and the album as a whole are ones with which it is easy to identify and, after all the darkness, bring you out into the light. “If you’re gonna tell a story, then make it good”, sings Williams. She has, and then some.

Mike Davies

Artist’s website: http://kathrynwilliams.co.uk/

Official album sampler: