Reviews - Kate Garrett - Vertigo Album Launch at The Wheatsheaf
Upstairs at the Wheatsheaf is an eminently suitable place for local songstress Kate Garrett to launch her self-released grower of a debut album, ‘Vertigo’. Roomy but intimate, filled with friends and fans it becomes even cosier, and when the house party garrulousness is hushed a very personal setting to hear Kate’s lovely voice.
And what a beautiful voice it is, pitched somewhere between the hovering thrill of Harriet Wheeler and the unsettling psychosis of Tori Amos. Kate can wend between those lights and darks with consummate ease and tonight, seated with her acoustic guitar and backed ably by viola, double bass, guitar, keyboards and drums, the multiple layers of the album are peeled away and brought to life. ‘Falling Over’ has an almost cheery, tumbling percussion, skipping its mood along, while ‘Satisfied’ starts with the sensual air of Kate Bush circa-‘The Kick Inside’ before morphing into a glittering Sundays-esque chorus. Indeed, being a mad Sundays-esque fan I miss the likes of ‘Lost’ and ‘Holding On’ from tonight’s set as Kate forgoes the prettier numbers for a lateral side-step into the twilight of songs like ‘Sleeping Still’, whose drowsiness seems to grasp out at the same free-floating emotional thistledown as ‘Kid A’. After the woozy slither of ‘Star’, Kate’s only recognisable residual from her days in The Mystics, recent single ‘Coming Home’ effortlessly delights us with the three leapfrogging notes that carry the lyric “It’s okay”, defining her voice and embedding themselves in side you like some kind of bewitchment.
If anything, Kate has a charming if overdeveloped sense of modesty, even to the point of putting her name last on the list of album sleeve note credits. But given a small tour, more of tonight’s cheering, applause and calls for encores and it will be a sight to see her body language bloom. And then we must hope that she doesn’t suffer from the vertigo her album title suggests since her talents could take her to some great heights.
Paul Carrera , Nightshift