Instincts can be hard to understand. Quite why my dog Dylan does half the stuff he does is beyond my comprehension and probably his as well. However, when instinct takes over between talented musicians they can develop an immediate understanding, a creative bond, and a shared musical path. The results can be simply magical.
With hardly a word exchanged they sit down and collaborate to produce music that totally compliments each other. Individuals fuse together to become very connected performers. In this case such a meeting has produced Two, the album. The two in question are Kathryn Williams and Neill MacColl.
Kathryn, nominated for a Mercury Prize in 2000, is one of the U.K.’s most respected singer, songwriters. She possesses a voice smoother than silk and an ability to write songs that will implant themselves deep inside your mind. Through her music the world can suddenly look a warmer place.
Guitarist and vocalist Neill MacColl is the son of Ewan, the guy who wrote “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” for his mother Peggy Seegar. When Neill met Kathryn at the Daughters Of Albion concert, part of BBC’s Folk Britannia series, something magical occurred.
Kathryn explains on their joint website, "we just clicked, we didn't need to say anything on stage, we could read where the other was going’. She adds, ‘within a few hours of first saying 'hello' to each other, we were saying 'yeah, let’s get together and make a record', which was both strange and kind of liberating."
The music came instinctively from them and in a mere six days they had written the backbone to the album Two. "We locked ourselves in a room for a few days and the songs just poured out of us," says Kathryn, "the way we write and play together is like we’re both steering the same ship, in the most natural and instinctive way."
They then brought in Phill Brown, who has worked with The Rolling Stones, Brian Eno, and the late John Martyn, to produce the album. Using his wealth of experience he lets the music speak for itself. He allows the intimacy of the atmosphere to develop to such a degree it is as though it has been written and is being performed just for the listener.
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