In an era of surprise releases, an album with this much anticipation around it feels like something from a bygone era – as does a lot about the debut from the much-awarded soul singer and songwriter. Recorded mostly in live takes with a full band, comprising some of the biggest names in Scottish jazz, this is an album that aspires to – and feels like – the work of the classics of the canon.
With that in mind, it says a lot about kitti’s talent as a songwriter that there were a few points in listening to this when I genuinely had to check the notes to make sure it wasn’t some lost American Songbook standard – the gospel-leaning ‘Wings’ or the plucked-string minimalism on ‘Me, Myself & I’ both feeling like they’ve been in the ether forever, just waiting to be found.
There’s a comfort in this – there are no drum and bass interludes or free jazz skronk. It’s a piece of music that wears its influences and heart firmly on its sleeve and while kitti’s exceptional, soulful voice is the clear standout here, this is way more than a vocal showcase. This is the summation of nearly a decade of craft and it feels it; songs that have been tried and tweaked and honed to a point in front of hundreds of audiences, run through the hands of a succession of musicians to get them to this point.
Songs that feel solid, like the work of an artisan. The bluesy bombast of ‘Must Be Somethin’’ already feels like a song that will blow up a hundred festival sets next summer, sharing some of the attitude (as well as a good few band members) of soul/funk contemporary Tom McGuire. There’s a knowing nod on the cheeky ‘Fine Ass’, and a hint of something more expansive on the ambitious closer ‘I Walk Away’ – a song that builds to a massive peak that feels like it could go on for ten more minutes in the right circumstance.
It’s telling that of two of the venues where kitti held the residencies that shaped these songs have gone under. Craft like this doesn’t happen in the abstract: it needs and deserves blood and heart and the eyes of the crowd.
Somethin’ In The Water is out on 15th November via Rebecca’s Records. Available here.
Main Photo Credit: Kieran Howe @oddness.studio
