 | | Reviews | | |  KIRSTY McGEE
Frost
Park Records prkcd69
McGee, a Mancunian who started playing in bands when she was just 14 before switching allegiances to acoustic, lost her first solo album to record label collapse. Her 2002 debut Honeysuckle earned her a Radio 2 Folk Awards nomination as best newcomer. This should see her graduate to the Best Album category.
Again resonant with her love of Nick Drake, Cohen and Joni, her eco sensibilities find plenty of expression in images of the natural world, with insects and the weather finding frequent expression within her songs. Mostly these hang their arms around relationships, their impermanence signified in songs of leaving (Plane Vapours), the wandering life (Spit & Shine), nature's ebb and flow (Kisses) and of life's passing (Cloudwatching).
The passage of time weighs upon her songs too, the changing seasons, day giving way to night, month surrendering to month; two possible lovers staring into the dawn sky at the end of a party in Coffee Coloured Strings and its what-happened-afterwards companion piece Put Back The Stars, sitting on a bench watching the tide of life pass by at St Mark's Place as memories trickle into its stream.
This all with a slightly dusty, pure, careworn and very English voice (shown to fine effect in the a cappella trad-sounding Safe Harbour Song) and musicians of the calibre of John Spiers, Roy Dodds, Neill MacColl and Boo Hewardine (who also produces) adding their mandolins, piano accordion, melodeons, guitars and double bass to McGee's own guitar and flute work. The sound of barley scented summer and harvest autumn nights, caught between late balmy breezes and early chills to the air, it's a gorgeous album that marks McGee as one of the finest exponents of literate and hauntingly emotional pastoral contemporary folk.
Mike Davies - May 2004
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 Honeysuckle Rose was a really nice collection but Frost is something else entirely. Singer songwriters influenced by Nick Drake and Joni Mitchell have been ten a penny in recent years and most of them are pretty bland. Kirsty is authentic, she's the real thing. I can't tell you how much the songs on Frost mean to me, they express emotions and an atmosphere that is beyond words. 'Songs are like tatoos', Well Kirsty's are anyway!
Stuart Masters, Birmingham
Kirsty's music is straight from the heart. They are really beautiful songs, that make me want to cry . Why don't we hear much more of her on Radio 2??
chris brock, staffordshire
I have just had a wonderful evening of music listening to Kirsty perform at Stoke St Nectan's Church, North Devon. Absolutely stunning voice and Mat is equally fantastic in his accompainment. Her songs are so meaningful and true, wonderful stuff! Well done Kirsty, roll on October for the launch of your new album. Very inspiring.
Alison Migliorini, Devon | | | | | | |  |
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Folk & Acoustic
