Ok… if you’re excited about Emma Ruth Rundle later this month, you should definitely check out A. A. Williams. Dark and twisted singin’ and songwritin’ all the way from London. And she’s joined by Patrick Carr, NC-based folk singer & fingerstyle guitarist.
A. A. WILLIAMS
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Making her stage debut in April 2019 and selling out her first headline show at London’s prestigious Southbank Centre less than a year later, A.A. Williams hit the ground running. Similarly, the acclaim for her performances and her music has been unanimous from the start. After one self-titled EP and a collaboration with Japanese post-rockers MONO, the London-based singer-songwriter signed to Bella Union and released her stunning debut album, Forever Blue, in July 2020.
That Southbank show would prove to be the last time she would take to the stage for a long while as the world struggled to cope with unforeseen and extreme challenges. Never a musician to sit still, the classically trained multi-instrumentalist focused her creativity on arranging – firstly, by stripping songs back to the most delicate bones on her Songs from Isolation covers record, and now with a complete reimagining of her own material as the four songs from her debut EP become arco.
Not many musicians have the ability – or indeed bravery – to rework a collection of their own full band ‘rock’ songs into a string-and-voice arrangement. A.A. Williams, however, is not like many musicians and the minimalism of Arvo Pärt and Gorecki has long since sat beside Vaughan Williams’ folk-inspired classical work as important influences on her music. Indeed, the intention with the EP was for Williams to challenge herself by not retaining guitars and drums, meaning arco had to be truly reimagined with a full string ensemble. As Williams describes it: “The main focus of the arrangements is trying to maintain the authenticity of the original songs that, whilst embodying some of the more familiar elements of the full-band settings, draws focus on the voice.”
Conducting the ensemble of string musicians in the studio, A.A. Williams has evolved her own compositions with new instrumentation and arrangements, encapsulating the singular vision of a unique artist.
PATRICK CARR
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Typically written in early morning hours and in hushed tones to avoid waking the neighbors, Patrick Carr creates beautifully complex and lush music. Utilizing alternate tunings on his guitar paired with his intricate fingerstyle playing, Carr’s music carries an emotional depth with incredibly introspective and open lyrics. As Brian Tucker of Star News noted, “[Carr’s] music has strong personality – distinct tonality and atmosphere against reserved vocals… [i]t’s carefully measured light and dark.”
After listening to his dad’s copy of the fourth Led Zeppelin album, Carr decided to pick up the guitar at the age of 16, cutting his teeth on the blues rock of the 60’s and 70’s. It wasn’t too long afterwards he heard the album Pink Moon by Nick Drake and his views on the power of the guitar were altered. Since then, he dove head first into the fingerstyle guitar playing of English folk artists such as Nick Drake and Bert Jansch, American Primitive guitarists like Daniel Bachman and John Fahey, as well as influences from Classical music and Indian ragas. Drawing from this deep well of influences, he has managed to create intricate pieces, but with an emotional depth. “Carr’s guitar work is unfettered, plaintive and melodic playing that illustrates an emotional state of mind,” Tucker writes.
In October of 2017, he released his debut EP entitled When the Road Darkens. Described as a kind of catharsis, Patrick says the EP is an attempt to “excavate thoughts and feelings that had been bottled up for a while.” Brian Tucker of Wilmington Star news writes, “Carr’s ‘When the Road Darkens’ feels like a dream, hazy and haunted, with his voice like a mix of Jim Morrison and Neil Young.”
Vox Humana, released in April of 2020, is a collection of instrumental acoustic guitar pieces, of which Brian Tucker writes, “[a]cross five tracks, whether it’s the contemplative “Eurydice” at four minutes or the nine minute mini-epic “Black Mountain/The Burial of the Dead,” each carries the weight of darkness underneath the rural sounding music.”
In 2020, Carr released his third EP, Be at My Side, compiling songs written during a three month sea change in 2019 and recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, in 2021 he released another instrumental EP, naming it The Shadow of Memories, which consists of pieces written and recorded during the pandemic.
