Kerri Watt – Chapter 1 (2020)
Musicians are one of the hardest-hit group of people trying to do what they do in these chaotic times of a virus pandemic. You can hardly go to a studio to record, direct contacts with an audience is ‘less than zero,’ and all the music you may come up with (basically at home) can lay there, unused. Still, there are ways to get out of that rot. One is getting out your recorded music at some regular rate, the other participating in virtual concert events as much as possible, particularly if they have a charitable character.
Scottish singer-songwriter Kerri Watt seems to be very active in both of those possibilities. On one hand, she’s been taking part in a number of charity streams such as Save Our Scottish Venues for the Music Venue Trust. On the other, she seems to have found an interesting way to get her music to an audience – get an album out by releasing a series of EP’s, hence this Chapter 1.
The idea is that each chapter (EP) should have a theme as Watt puts it, “I had the idea to keep putting out little nuggets from the album in the form of EP’s – giving more glimpses into the style of the album.” So, what kind of glimpse do we get? Essentially, a tasty little three-song musical sandwich.
At the start and the end, it is Watt’s take on country goes pop (rock). ‘Jessie’ goes in what you can call Kasey Musgraves territory – a breezy, countrified pop song with excellent vocals from Watt and an arrangement to match. Watt says that the main character of the song is based on the character of Lucy from Leslie Bricusse’s Jekyll & Hyde. Interesting. At the other end is ‘Can’t Catch Me,’ another take on country, but this time around more from a Southern rock perspective than pop. Maybe we can’t catch Kerri, but it is a catchy tune nonetheless.
Needless to say, Watt’s Chapter 1, and its possible successors, certainly serve as a teaser of some good pop to come our way. And good pop is one of the hardest things to do in modern music.
For more from Kerri Watt check out her Twitter, Instagram and Spotify.
