Kathryn Williams

British folk singer/songwriter Kathryn Williams crafts thoughtful, poetic material delivered through a delicate voice. She emerged from relative obscurity in 2000 after her self-released album Little Black Numbers earned a Mercury Prize nomination. That recognition secured a major-label deal for the first half of the decade, after which she regained her independence. Beyond her own releases she pursued notable partnerships, among them the 2008 collaboration Two with Neill MacColl and a 2010 children’s record made with punk musician Anna Spencer as the Crayonettes. Critical favor and broader recognition continued through the 2010s once she joined One Little Indian, yielding albums such as 2013’s Crown Electric and the ambitious 2015 set Hypoxia, drawn from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. In 2022 she issued Night Drives, an Ed Harcourt-produced collection emphasizing expansive arrangements and cinematic string sections, followed in 2024 by Wilson Williams, a joint project with Withered Hand’s Dan Wilson.

Her recording career opened in 1999 with Dog Leap Stairs, a beguiling collection of low-key folk songs that invited comparisons to the hushed style of Nick Drake. The Liverpool native had moved to Newcastle to study fine arts, yet her second album, 2000’s Little Black Numbers, unexpectedly launched a musical path when it received a Mercury Prize nod. More expansive than its predecessor while retaining intimate charm, the record appeared first on her own Caw label before EastWest, a Warner imprint, licensed it for wider distribution. With her profile elevated, Williams began preparing a third album and joined folk figures Bert Jansch and John Martyn for collaborative performances. Old Low Light followed in 2002, then the covers album Relations in 2004.

After her EastWest period ended, Williams maintained a fiercely independent stance and an understated approach, returning to her Caw imprint for the prolific releases Over Fly Over in 2005 and Leave to Remain in 2006. In 2008 she partnered with British singer/songwriter Neill MacColl—son of folk icons Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger—on the Nettwerk-issued album Two. That year she also supplied vocals to Bombay Bicycle Club’s debut single “Evening/Morning.” Another joint venture arrived in 2010 when she and Newcastle-based punk musician Anna Spencer formed the children’s duo the Crayonettes.

Later that year Williams resumed solo work, signing with London’s One Little Indian and sustaining a steady output. The Quickening appeared in 2010, followed by the Adrian Utley-produced The Pond in 2012. Crown Electric arrived the next year as she undertook her largest U.K. tour to date, having previously shared bills with Ray LaMontagne, Martha Wainwright, and KT Tunstall. Her eleventh album, 2015’s Hypoxia, offered a lyrically and sonically ambitious set co-produced by Ed Harcourt and inspired by Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar. Resonator, a collection of jazz standards recorded with vibraphone player Anthony Kerr, surfaced in 2016. Returning to literary sources, she set lyrics drawn from Laura Barnett’s novel Greatest Hits for the 2017 companion album Songs from the Novel Greatest Hits. In 2021 she joined British poet and playwright Dame Carol Ann Duffy for the Christmas-themed Midnight Chorus. Williams returned to solo work in July 2022 with Night Drives, an album featuring expanded instrumentation centered on string parts; Harcourt again handled production duties alongside numerous additional musicians. In 2024 she united with Scottish folk-pop singer/songwriter Dan Wilson, known as Withered Hand, for Wilson Williams, a warmly intimate set exploring themes of grief and loss.