I wrote about Katherine Priddy back in May, not long after I discovered her music, and have been listening to her debut album, The Eternal Rocks Beneath, repeatedly since it came out in June. Two days ago I had the huge pleasure of hearing her play live for the first time, at Folk by the Oak. I'd been looking forward to this for a long while - the pleasure of live music, outdoors, is very hard to beat, and it was great to see the joy in all the artists that day.
To say it was hot and sunny is understatement of the year. It was sweltering and unrelenting. But Katherine came out on stage, cool as a cucumber, greeted us happily and gently and launched into a well-judged, tender and subtle set. Her music seemed to work particularly well out in the open air, in the grass and trees, adding another layer to the music of her set. I called it 'epicly lovely' on Twitter at the time, and I stand by that. Indigo (one of my favourites from the album) was pleasingly delicate, and Wolf (listen below) was just beautiful, becoming quite dreamy with an extended section of honest, melodic guitar picking.
As you listen to Katherine - particularly live - you sometimes find that you've been lost in a kind of reverie, with her music acting like a comforting backdrop to your daydream. Then you realise that, even better, this is real - we have been gifted with such musical beauty in this world. That happened a few times to me during her set, and I don't think that it was all down to sunstroke.
After going a bit more traditional and upbeat with Letters From a Travelling Man (the central pivot of her album) Katherine went solo with Northern Sunrise (giving her fabulous musical partner George Boomsma a break for a few minutes). And then she finished, all too soon and somehow looking and sounding as fresh as she'd started, with a song called The Old Truth.
PS - I've decided not to do one long post all about Folk by the Oak, but instead do a few smaller ones, highlighting some of the individual acts I heard. This is the first.