Known for her delicate, moving voice and poetic songwriting, Williams rose to prominence in 2000 with ‘Little Black Numbers’, the self-released album that earned her a Mercury Prize nomination and became a touchstone for a new generation of British folk. Over the decades since, her output has been both prolific and shapeshifting. She’s written a novel (The Ormering Tide), hosted a podcast (Before the Light Goes Out), worked as a visual artist, collaborated with a wide array of musicians from John Martyn and Paul Weller to Ed Harcourt and Withered Hand, and released celebrated projects across genres, including her Christmas album, ‘Midnight Chorus’, with Dame Carol Ann Duffy. Her most recent release, 'Willson Williams' was SAY and Americana Award-nominated as well as receiving critical praise.
With ‘Mystery Park’, Williams returns to the sparse and affecting sonic palette that marked her early releases ‘Old Low Light’ and ‘Relations’. These are songs made in the quiet margins of motherhood and memory, written over time, and recorded in close creative communion with trusted collaborators; Leo Abrahams (guitar, piano, bass, vocals), Neill MacColl (guitar, vocals), Polly Paulusma (guitar, vocals), Chris Vatalaro (drums), Ed Harcourt (piano, mariachi bass, vocals), David Ford (harmonica), and Paul Weller (Hammond organ, vocals).
“This is the most personal record I’ve made,” says Williams. “The artwork is my own painting, based on the willow pattern from my grandmother’s tea sets. Each part of it ties into the songs - a map of memories.”
From the opening notes of ‘Thoughts of My Own’, there’s a sense of stillness and attention. Leo Abrahams (Brian Eno, Paul Simon), who produced the album, improvises guitar alongside Neill MacColl, echoing dappled light on a wall. The song is about working from home when the rest of the house is gone - the inner monologue of solitude, and the curious “musings, thoughts, and ideas that all happen with no one to share them with. Being inside the house but also being inside the house of oneself.” It’s wistful, and ponderous, inviting listeners to inhabit the slow rhythms of the inner self.
‘Goodbye to Summer’, co-written with Polly Paulusma during an Arvon retreat, is breezy and bittersweet, a song suffused with colour. It reflects on swallows and sunlit evenings, asking; “how many more summers do we have?”.
‘Gossamer Wings’ is a collaboration with music legend Paul Weller. Built from voice notes and texts, it captures a moment of creative chemistry born at a distance, with Kathryn’s enthusiasm tempered into something tender and unforced. “My eagerness to show him I was diligent made me barge on ahead without him on this one, but we pulled it together and I calmed the heck down for the second sitting. This was based on the title that Paul had and an idea of spirits breaking free from the constraints.”
In ‘Tender’, also with Paulusma, Kathryn observes from a tour van, noting the strange weight of not fitting in, of having “thin skin” and soaking up the world too deeply. It’s impactful, with space around every note. ‘This Mystery’ offers one of the album’s most arresting metaphors; a record shattered in the road becomes a symbol for her father’s dementia. “Memory being unplayable in the form that it was in,” she says. “But this is a song for him, not the disease. Anyone who has had a loved one diagnosed with this cruelty will know how you just want to paint their skies blue and make everything all right.”
There are moving tributes throughout. ‘Sea of Shadows’ is for her eldest son, Louis, a warm and reflective song about watching him grow from infant to adult. “Parenthood isn’t fixed. We think we will have small kids forever, but time quickens and before we know it, we have huge humans living with us where once there was a little baby. I love singing this song and thinking of him through the different images and travelling through time”. Likewise, closing track, ‘Servant of the Flame’, is written for her younger son, Ted, and the act of simply sitting beside him while he plays video games - choosing presence, even in small moments, as an act of love. “Watching them evolve into their own identities. Seeing them struggle and hoping that they can navigate the ups and downs that we all face in life.”
Elsewhere, Williams explores the tension between inner and outer lives. ‘Move Me’, co-written with Beth Nielsen Chapman in a Chris Difford songwriting session, started as a rumination on emotional numbness in the age of overconsumption, then turned inward, into something more vulnerable and self-revealing. Full band piece ‘Personal Paradise’ was born from a playful idea sparked during a poet-led writing session. “Its imagery came originally from the fact that my old dog Lucy (my Westie, seen on the ‘Dog Leap Stairs’ cover and this album) used to bark at the back fence. It made me think that if she was inside the garden of Eden or in heaven, would she bark at me on the other side?”
‘Knew You Forever’ feels almost weightless, one of those rare songs that arrive fully formed, as if broadcast from elsewhere. It captures the timelessness of connection, the uncanny feeling of always having known someone. And ‘Sunsets’, written with Neill MacColl, is a meditation on ephemeral beauty, and the challenge artists face in choosing whether to document or simply experience it.
Throughout ‘Mystery Park’, there’s a sense that we are being welcomed into a private, shifting landscape where time folds, memory flickers, and the interior world is given centre stage. It’s an album made slowly and with care, with contributions from some of Kathryn’s closest musical companions. In a landscape often geared toward immediacy and spectacle, ‘Mystery Park’ stands as a gentle refusal. It invites the listener to slow down, to sit with the quiet revelations of a life observed closely, lived fully, and rendered in song with grace and generosity.
“This record is for anyone who’s felt something and kept it quiet,” says Williams. “For those private echoes. I hope these songs give people space to hear their own.”
Track listing:
- Thoughts of My Own
- Goodbye to Summer
- Gossamer Wings
- Tender
- This Mystery
- Sea of Shadows
- Move Me
- Personal Paradise
- Knew You Forever
- Sunsets
- Servant of the Flame
Album credits
- All songs written by Kathryn Williams
- Produced, engineered and mixed by Leo Abrahams at The Shelter
- Kathryn Williams – vocals
- Leo Abrahams – guitar, bass, keyboards, ukulele, piano
- Neill MacColl – guitar, vocals
- Polly Paulusma – vocals, guitar (track 2 and 4)
- Paul Weller – vocals, Hammond organ (track 3)
- Ed Harcourt – piano (tracks 5, 6, 7, 10), mariachi bass (track 7), vocals (track 10)
- Chris Vatalaro – drums, piano (track 9)
- David Ford – harmonica (track 7)
- Emma Smith – violin (tracks 5, 6, 7)
- Track 2 – written with Polly Paulusma
- Track 3 – written with Paul Weller
- Track 4 – written with Polly Paulusma
- Track 6 – written with Neill MacColl & Leo Abrahams
- Track 7 – written with Beth Nielsen Chapman
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