Someday, Now by Katy J Pearson
Earlier this year, Bristol, England singer-songwriter Katy J Pearson colorfully enhanced “When the Laughter Stops,” a key track from Leeds band Yard Act’s second album, Where’s My Utopia? On her own third album, Someday, Now, Pearson saturates her art with colors.
Her main partner in this saturation is Nathan Jenkins, a.k.a. Bullion, a producer as well as a fellow English singer-songwriter. He’s worked with agile pop people like Carly Rae Jepsen and hip electronic musicians like Avalon Emerson, and Pearson entrusts him with 10 songs that selectively absorb and reflect his methodical sonic spray-painting.
While Bullion and Pearson share a basic vision of pop music as best when built up from melodies rather than from trendy ideas, they throw a few toys around: “Those Goodbyes,” the opening track, features sequin-glitter synthesizers and pitch-shifted phrases that flicker like mysterious interruptions on a streaming service.
However, the foundation of “Those Goodbyes” is a midtempo strummed-guitar figure that wouldn’t be out of place in a classic Fleetwood Mac ballad—and Pearson furthers the comparison with singing that recalls the ruminative ease Stevie Nicks could summon when facing the onset of heartbreak.
And, unlike too many contemporary female pop singers, Pearson does not regard Mariah Carey’s dolphin-confusing melismas as artistic peaks. She prefers the childlike hoarseness that adds plaintiveness to the low-toned woodwinds and tiptoe pace of “Someday,” or the girl-group sweetness (including studio-layered harmonies) that adds friskiness to the genially spooky New Wave rock of “Grand Final.”
Pearson also prefers allusive connections, not open admissions: “Save Me” curtly nods to Madonna’s early sincerity and simplicity; “Long Range Driver” brushes fingertips with hypersensitive, hyperintelligent alt-rock heroines like Liz Phair and Kristin Hersh; and the pensively folky “Sky” links arms with her previous work. Someday, Now is Katy J Pearson’s audio version of a vivid color spectrum.
|
|
Get Someday, Now at Amazon here.
Paid link
