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| Whistler
- Kerry Shaw, Ian Dench and James Topham - have spent the last 4 years
developing an approach to songwriting shared by few contemporaries.
Their first album, simply called "Whistler", and released in the Spring
of 1999, was a taut study in fragility and fallibility, picked out
in sparse acoustic arrangements and shot through with wistful melodies.
Heralded by a brace of singles of the week ("If I Give You A Smile"
in the NME and "Don't Jump In Front Of My Train" in the Melody Maker)
and a flurry of Evening Session appearances, it won the band a devoted
audience and a string of welcoming reviews. "Faith In The Morning" places a similar emphasis on meticulous construction and clarity of perception, but it traces a more complex web of emotions and opens up to admit a richer, darker palette of instruments and sound. Kerry's lyrics have modulated away from the deadpan spite that characterised "Whistler", mingling compassion with her customarily clear-eyed observations - and with that increased clarity of perception has come increased boldness of execution. The dolorous Tibetan chimes that underpin "Happiness", the eddying feedback drifting like skeins of mist across "You And Me", the artfully fumbled staccato guitar that closes "Watches Of Switzerland", the sub-bass fluctuating giddily beneath the choppy drones of "Solitude" and the final orchestral flourish of "I Saw You" - all these are winning signs of an expanding confidence and range. But the basic Whistler principles - unswerving observation, simmering tension, foot-perfect arrangements and beautiful patterns - remain firmly in place. Kerry Shaw's unnerving poise as a singer is a bit of a decoy; as she says, "I'd sing like Iggy Pop if I could". Her cool tones convey the numbness that follows powerful emotion, at the same time as her words anatomise that emotion. Her lyrics condense reams of insight into a few stark sentences - she writes them, she says, instead of having an argument, knowing that the process of enshrining criticism in song somehow takes the sting out of it. As does the array of grievous melody, the swooping viola sighs and radiant guitar lines, that hold the words in gentle suspension. Update: The beautiful "Faith In The Morning" was released in October 2000 preceded by a single called "Happiness", which in that elusive Whistler fashion is almost about happiness. |
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