Indescribable Night
All Saints ASCD25 CD
Wire
August 1995

After years of work as a member of The Ravishing Beauties and Dream Academy, and as a session musician with the likes of Van Morrison and Julian Cope, one would expect Kate St John's debut album to be a poised affair. And so it is. A collection of delicately orchestrated songs, Indescribable Night negotiates the distance that separates a bygone age of Edwardian songs and modern textures, linking up with a smokey chanson style en route.

This is a lengthy distance to cover and St John's approach is, in general, to eschew the grand gesture in favour of more subtle, intimate moments: woodwind, piano and vibes are the album's main instruments. The title song is an accomplished, unashamedly romantic work. St John's lilting vocals are a focal point, although she frequently avoids such a role, giving leads elsewhere to Brian Kennedy, Georgie Fame and Virginia Astley.

The defining atmosphere is, nevertheless, one with which The Ravishing Beauties first experimented. With lyrics adapted from Tennyson, "There Is Sweet Music Here That Softer Falls" is sweet and rather breathy, leisurely; the kind of song one might find in a Peter Greenaway remake of a Merchant-Ivory country house film. Yet at the point at which the song threatens a development of a somewhat cloying demeanour, St John turns it around by introducing jarring textures. But there is no preoccupation with texture to the detriment of other elements: St John shows an adept management of all elements of song composition.

LOUISE GRAY