Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

For those making their way to Studio 2 on Parr Street, dodging the fireworks, skilfully avoiding the booming tones of the November air and the threatening drizzle with the hopeful keen anticipation of Vanessa Murray’s E.P. launch, the thought of support would naturally cross their mind. For many the names Dominic Dunn and Shannen Bamford are as easily recognised and lauded as a good fish supper from The Lobster Pot or a night out down at The Cavern, for they have served their time in front of the audiences, yet for Katy Alex, sensuous, creative and poised, the name might not mean anything to many yet, but on the strength of this performance will no doubt be one to be considered with glowing terms.

With Guy Turner on saxophone and Silvan Rupp on keys, Katy Alex opened the evening at Studio 2 with great determination, the sense of longing and the perpetual heartbreak that many have come to expect when new songs and new music takes their fancy. It is the heartbreak of cool ice, of the lingering glance from a face full of beauty and the inner workings of an artist studying your reactions and in each of the five songs displayed like fine porcelain dolls on a well polished shelf, the need to take care in their presence was verging on the overwhelming.

The evening was set alight, the initial spark of the Catherine Wheel before it rotates with anger and fiery breath, by the appearance of Katy Alex and in the songs Cupid, The Boy Like That and the appropriate Heartstrings that November Catherine Wheel blazed with wonder. It was a set in which respect was born and the shadow of the closing year rapidly approaching, to find a new heroine in which to emerge was perhaps the most gratifying present in which to receive.

Katy Alex fits in well to the soul of the young Liverpool based musician, a real find and one to warm the heart against the cold of a November day.

Ian D. Hall