Here come three songs that turn the spotlight on the voice of I.V. Webb – exile of New York City who landed in London with nothing but her immense, soulful voice and a catalogue of poetry and tunes that amplify emotions to levels of intensity you don’t just hear, but feel – the pain that’s the dark flip-side of joy, the longing that can’t be erased by passing time, and the urgency of deep love. This is a voice that evokes equally the cadences and, more importantly, the spirit of female icons such as Sandy Denny, Patti Smith and Chrissie Hynde – but who needs comparisons when you’re dealing with the incomparable. Just listen…
“Silence took all the words away; the laughter has died into space” Speechless, its subdued, slide and mournful strings evoking shades of Dylan’s ‘Desire’, is a masterpiece of controlled tension – what could have been a howl of anguish and bewildered dispossession is instead a steeled statement, the sound of spirit near-silently slipping away into the night.
“I miss you baby, miss your ghost; what you used to be haunts me still; I long to feel the same, without the pain” Stars is a phenomenal mixture of flavours, echoing both the bitter folk tones of the Velvet Underground and the Celtic romance of Shane MacGowan’s finest songwriting; the song the testimony of the one left standing after all the other dominoes have tumbled; a defiant challenge.
“All I want for you to say, is can I stay” Last Goodbye is a plaintive. Waves and peaks of externalised emotion and sound crash down and bare the valedictory and salty scent of a tear in the breeze. Ultimately, this moment will uplift you because this end signals the beginning…
