"In years to come, I’ll look back at the records I’ve made and not have any regrets about a man in a suit making me fit in with fashion. They’re small, sketchy pieces. I’m not trying to make Big Art.’

Kathryn Williams may not be trying to make Big Art. But, for many of us, the art she makes is as big as it gets. It’s to do with the immensity of softly-expressed passions. It’s beauty lies in her ability to take an everyday observation, the kind of thing that might attract anyone’s attention for an instant before we’re distracted by all those Desperately Important Things we’re busy with, in a song that breaks your heart, with a voice that instinctively understands the power of restraint, of intimacy, of melody that drifts like thought, of lyric that pricks like a needle, or conscience, probably both. No need to take my word for it, though. All you have to do is put on Kath’s sixth album, ‘Leave To Remain’, released as (almost) always on her own Caw label.

There have been big changes in the 32-year-old singer, guitarist and songwriter’s life since 2004’s major label covers album ‘Relations‘, a period which included the appearance of 2005’s excellent ‘Over Fly Over’ album. Positive changes, sure… but still the kind of changes which can either distract a creative type so completely they lose their muse, or disappear altogether. Thankfully for Kath addicts, these changes have had the opposite effect, and her new record, recorded over the last few months in Newcastle, Glasgow and London, is her best. Yep… even better than 2001’s ‘Little Black Numbers‘, the extraordinary second Williams album that bagged a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and that major label deal, with which we’ll deal a little later. Indeed, ‘Leave To Remain’ is, according to the ever self-critical Kath, ‘The one where, if it wasn’t my voice, I could probably listen to it.’

After originally planning ‘Leave to Remain’ as a stark affair featuring her core band of Dave Scott (guitar) and Laura Reid (cello, keyboards), Liverpool-born and Newcastle-based Williams brought onboard Kate St.John, string and woodwind arranger for the like of Van Morrison and Roger Eno. She and Williams met when St.John provided the arrangements for 2000’s Nick Drake tribute concert at The Barbican, where Williams made her first major live appearance. The pair then got together with producer Darius Kedros and set about creating a fuller sounding album using a mini-orchestra of woodwind and string players, casting haunting and increasingly sophisticated songs in hues that carry the unmistakable tang of classic 60’s Amercian pop, ala Jimmy Webb/Burt Bacharach.

Having been associated throughout her seven year recording career - which began with 1999’s ‘Dog Leap Stairs‘, legendarily made for the princely sum of £80 - with the English folk-pop tradition of Nick Drake, Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention, Kath’s happy to own up to her love of Americana. ‘‘That’s more what I grew up with than the English tradition. I was listening to Dylan and Joni Mitchell. This album is more like that. But I also love The Velvets and grungy New York stuff. The things that influence you aren’t necessarily gonna come out in obvious ways, unless you’re trying to copy. I don’t sound like Lou Reed or Tom Waits. But when I listen to them, I learn.’

‘Leave To Remain’ arrives at a point where singer-songwriters are big business, and where a folk revival, of sorts, is afoot. Does Kathryn Williams finally fit in?

‘Ha! Its really funny. I’m six albums in, and I’ve been labelled in with the singer-songwriters, then with the NAM/New Acoustic Movement, then I was put in the Outsider group. Then I was shoved in with Dido and Norah Jones. And then it was KT Tunstall and Jem and all of that. I’m just in a car passing these things. If people wanna wave to me while I go past then that’s fine.

"Beautiful and intense- her best album yet”- The Observer

“It is impossible to turn away for a second… emotional stealth-bombing at its most devastating”- Word magazine

“Glittering talent”- The Independent

“A uniquely personal touch”- Mojo

2010 brings Kathryn Williams NEW ALBUM "The Quickening" releaseed on One Little Indian Records on February 22nd.