Skip to main content

Kathryn Joseph: From When I Wake

Summerhall, Edinburgh
Five stars

A strip of vertical mirrors lines the back of the stage throughout Kathryn Joseph’s theatrical rendering of her remarkable second album, From When I Wake The Want Is, presented on this five date tour as a low-key spectacle by the Glasgow-based Cryptic company. More mirrors are attached to Joseph’s piano, so it looks like some junk-yard steam-punk contraption about to be powered into the skies.

It is to designer James Johnston’s cut-glass slivers hanging all-angles in a row behind her that Joseph sings to first, squaring up to her own image in a set of invocations that are possibly the ultimate in self-reflective soul-baring. When Joseph finally turns to the audience mid-way through the album’s title track, it is with a fearlessness that defines the raw candour of her songs as she pounds at the piano keys with a driven insistence.

As directed by Josh Armstrong, and with little pause between songs, the album is revealed as a suite that evolves into a hypnotic whirlwind of warring emotions, where love and anger tug against each other over hymnal, school assembly piano married to arcane electronic beats.

As wind sounds roar, Joseph stands and sips on a glass of red wine, showing off the full splendour of body architect Marketa Kratochvilova’s bespoke jewellery she is adorned in. Bathed in Nich Smith’s lighting, she looks like a warrior queen enjoying her down-time before being embraced by the erotic spirit of Molly Bloom.

At one point Joseph flips the mirrors over, so scarlet and purple lights flicker and bounce off their plain white bases like flames while giant shadows are cast onto the ceiling. With the audience huddled adoringly close to the performance, the stage maybe could have done with being a few inches higher, but no matter, Joseph soars anyway in a perfect evocation of her rare and precious art.

The Herald, September 17th 2018 

ends





Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Myra Mcfadyen - An Obituary

Myra McFadyen – Actress   Born January 12th 1956; died October 18th 2024   Myra McFadyen, who has died aged 68, was an actress who brought a mercurial mix of lightness and depth to her work on stage and screen. Playwright and artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, David Greig, called McFadyen “an utterly transformative, shamanic actor who could change a room and command an audience with a blink”. Citizens’ Theatre artistic director Dominic Hill described McFadyen’s portrayal of Puck in his 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London as “funny, mischievous and ultimately heartbreaking.”   For many, McFadyen will be most recognisable from Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based around ABBA songs. McFadyen spent two years on the West End in Phyllida Lloyd’s original 1999 stage production, and was in both film offshoots. Other big screen turns included Rob Roy (1995) and Our Ladies (2019), both directed by Mi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Andrew Midgley obituary

Born October 26th 1965 Died October 28th 2010 Andrew Midgley, who has died of a heart attack during a session in a Musselburgh gym aged forty-five, didn’t look like a pop star. Neither did this most garrulously playful of raconteurs particularly enjoy talking about his brief time in the charts during the early 1990s. Yet, while there was far more to this most singular of autodidacts, as one half of club-dance duo Cola Boy, Midgley caught the pop-rave zeitgeist with appearances on Top of the Pops performing the band’s infectiously catchy top ten hit, Seven Ways To Love. Even here, however, just as he would later apply diligence and care behind the scenes as a sub-editor on the Edinburgh Evening News, creating two of the funniest websites on the planet or managing an award-winning comedian, the man nicknamed ‘Boy Naughty’ preferred to stay in the background, allowing former Wham! backing singer turned Radio Two DJ Janey Lee Grace to bask in the day-glo spotlight of the period. Mid...
Post a Comment
Read more