result. I think it’s about time she got her proper dues away from the myth of her life.


Kathryn Williams has 10 studio albums under her belt, has collaborated with some of the great and good from the music world, was nominated for a Mercury Prize, made a kids album inspired by punk music and runs song writing retreats. Somehow she’s also found time to spend three years crafting an album, Hypoxia, based on Te Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. She plays Te Bicycle Shop this month, so I had a chat with her about frustrating customers in health food shops and overcoming her fear of failure.


Your latest album Hypoxia came out of project you were working on writing songs inspired by Sylvia Plath’s Te Bell Jar. Did you feel like you ended up channelling her whilst writing and recording these songs? I think I had to immerse myself in the book and I hadn’t read that book for years. I tried to understand her through her book and why she chose the characters and themes she did. Placing myself in her shoes was a big part of it, but also then living up to her writing and wanting to create something original that would represent her in a new way rather than the way in which she’s been marginalised as an icon, Ted Hughes’ wife who killed herself, all that teenage angst, the glamorous woman of the ‘60’s. I wanted to re-evaluate that, and it was three years of intensity and it’s not the easiest to perform live because you go back into those worlds and characters, but you have to do that or


20 / April 2016/outlineonline.co.uk


else what’s the fucking point! Plath was a poet, author and mother – did you feel a natural affinity with her? I got a commission from Durham Book Festival to write about Sylvia Plath. It was a big thing to take on and a daunting responsibility, and I didn’t want to feel like I was riding on the back of her genius and success, I just wanted to represent her well and consider the way she worked. I became like an actor getting into a role really, prophetically it then became emotionally very much about things that were happening in my own life so it became very poignant. It’s one of the most amazing projects because it wasn’t my idea to do this, it came from a writing commission and then followed two years of writing songs for the book and then going to the label and suggesting it as an album, which didn’t go down so well initially! But they did it, and lots of people have said they’ve re-evaluated her work as a


How difficult was it to write songs on a theme, rather than freestyling it so to speak? Did it make it easier or harder? Both! Te commission was originally open, they just said anything about Sylvia Plath and I had to narrow it down to Te Bell Jar. Once I’d come to that then it was like honing in to a single brick each time instead of trying to do the whole House! Tere was a purity to having to stay within the boundaries of the project which was amazing because it opens you up; I never would have written those songs those confinements and those pressures. It’s forever changed me, and for the better I think. Which is the song from Hypoxia that means the most to you? I tend to go for the smallest underdog, like most things in my life, so I have a soft spot in my heart for the song Beating Heart. It has a real stillness to it, and when I sing it I kind of do feel like I’m just opening myself up. It’s quite a vulnerable moment but something that I want to embrace at the same time to give the song the impact it should. It’s not all about being clever…fuck that shit! I want songs to move me or make me think about things I’ve never thought about before or feel connected to something else. Can you remember the very first song you wrote that you were proud of? I was in a band in school with my sister. We were called Yak Attack and wore pink tops and denim skirts and we wrote a song called If You’re Gonna Get Into My Life You’ve Gotta Get It Right. I


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64