Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Music is the Wave Machine to which our minds respond in peaks and troughs.
Our hearts may melt at the spoken gesture of a Shakespearean Sonnett, our eyes may mist at the sight of a Constable’s Haywain or grow inclined to embrace a surreal portion of Dali’s expression, we can even wax lyrical ourselves when describing a momentous piece of architecture to a person who cannot see, but music, the sound and emotion that accompanies a human voice as it seeks to address the joy, the love, the fear, the hatred and damage, of the grief caused by existing in the now, that is the sheer drive that causes the Wave Machine to be our constant friend and guide.
The debut solo album from Kelly Bayfield is one that epitomises the wave of humanity in all its forms of emotions, the British feel of regret and honest sadness, buoyed with the succulent appreciation of the Americana, the feminine cheer of support in desperate times, the attitude of a thousand kisses to soothe a tempered brow. The wave is a crest and a fathom, impossible to have one without the other, and true artists understand that the combination of the two is what drives the spirit onwards, what gives the pleasure and the melancholic blues their prime spot as life’s surfboards conquer the influence of whitecaps.
With guest appearances from Paul Sartin, Phil Beer, Toby Shaer, the divine Beth Porter, Ben Please, Ruth Wall, Scott Neubert, Nick Zala-Webb, Mats Hård, the sublime Andy Trill, Tony Winn, Jonathan Evans, and Mark Stuart, Kelly Bayfield has surrounded herself with a cream of talent that pushes the sound of her own expression to a point where the board on the crest of the wave feels as though it is capable of every manoeuvre, every thrill possible.
Across track such as Whistling Man, Safe For Now, Harrier From The Marsh, Anything Less, Vapour Trails, and Bird Of Prey, Kelly Bayfield’s solo debut is an impressionable stamp on the heart of the listener, and that horizon, the conjuring of a larger apex to come, will surely be as easily, and lovingly crossed when the time comes.
The Wave Machine is in harmony with its creator, the occasion of beauty tied with the emotions of transformation, of elegant personal revolution, is one of savouring breaking down boundaries and fierce insistence that change can be an instrument to wield with passion and precision.
Kelly Bayfield releases Wave Machine on January 27th.
Ian D. Hall