‘The Nottingham-born singer returns to her roots in a lockdown album with a sharper, more personal edge’
![Katy Carr.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/338986ef7ba9e94c1ea9fa1b1ca56e89d7deb161/0_1029_3110_1866/master/3110.jpg?width=300&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=65290400e774c7d4b3c94844dba3fcbe)
I am delighted to share my most recent album review of Providence in the Folk music album review section of The Guardian
(Deluxe Recordings)
The Nottingham-born singer returns to her roots in a lockdown album with a sharper, more personal edge by Neil Spencer
Nottingham-born singer Katy Carr has followed a singular grail over recent years, exploring her Polish heritage on 2012’s Paszport and 2015’s Polonia, each celebrating events and heroes of Anglo-Polish history. Providence completes the trilogy, while shifting its focus from the second world war to a wider canvas that includes tributes to Oscar Wilde and Boudicca.
Made during lockdown, it’s a minimalist affair mostly brewed up between Carr’s electric piano and Rupert Gillett’s cello and synths, with few of the musical excursions that studded its predecessors. The pair hit a compulsive groove on Hero to Zero, a dystopian salute to Orwell’s 1984, and Miracle on the Vistula, recalling a victory in the 1919 Polish-Soviet war. The same conflict delivers Hej Sokoly, a folk song popular among Polish troops, while The Virgin Queene toasts Elizabeth I with a two-step that belongs more to Polish plains than the Spanish Armada.
There are softer, less declamatory moments: a spartan reprise of Peter Hammill’s Afterwards; a paean to swimming in Hampstead ladies’ pond; and a wistful finale with Freedom Song. Much of Carr’s output revolves around the theme of liberty; lockdown has lent the subject a keener, more personal edge.
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Link to article https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2020/nov/21/katy-carr-providence-review-anglo-polish-lockdown-album
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