The Pendulum Swing [CD]

Katherine Priddy - The Pendulum Swing [CD]

British singer-songwriter Katherine Priddy is to release her much-anticipated sophomore album The Pendulum Swing via Cooking Vinyl. This follows her highly acclaimed 2021 debut The Eternal Rocks Beneath, which announced Priddy as a singular new talent on the contemporary roots music scene. Speaking about the single, "First House On The Left", and the wider themes on the album Priddy commented: “Despite its soft and dreamy sound, this song provides the cornerstone around which the album and its themes orbit." The album title The Pendulum Swing is taken from a line in this song and describes the urge to leave and the even stronger urge to return. It also sums up this second album as a whole nicely - "despite moving forward and feeling the need to do something different with this second release, I still can't help but return to those fundamental, unchanging things at the root of it all: home, family, love." Overall, I wanted this song and the album to feel lived in, and this is captured in part by the ghostly atmospheres, mechanical clockwork sounds, creaking floorboards, indistinct whispers and old tape recordings of my family that are littered throughout. I want to invite the listener to come in, sit down and inhabit the album for a little while, and this song is right at the heart of that.” Once again recorded in Birmingham by producer Simon J Weaver, guest musicians comprise John Smith (lead guitar), Harry Fausing Smith (strings), Marcus Hamblett (brass/double bass), George Boomsma (guitar, backing vocals, co-writer on track “Ready To Go”), Polly Virr (cello) and even a brief appearance from Priddy’s family members right at the end of the album, in keeping with its themes. With The Pendulum Swing, Priddy has managed to keep moving forward whilst acknowledging and honouring all that has gone before.