Stunning, intimate and heart-warming are just a few of the superlatives that can be aimed at What Love Is, the long-awaited third album from East Yorkshire songstress Katie Spencer.
Release Date: 3rd October 2025
Label: Lightship Records
Formats: CD / Vinyl / Digital
WE’VE BEEN WAITING…
We’re becoming very, very, fond of East Yorkshire songstress Katie Spencer, here at At The Barrier. We were alerted to Katie’s unique brand of jazz-tinged acoustic music, her absorbing songs, her dazzling, crystal-clear guitar style and, best of all, her shiver-me-timbers, vibrato-inflected voice by her show-stopping performances at the 2023 Shrewsbury Folk Festival and at the 2024 New Forest Folk Festival. This time last year, our appreciation of her talents ratcheted up a few more notches by her celebration of the work of John Martyn at her show at Leamington Spa’s Temperance. To cap it all, we were, just a couple of weeks ago, honoured and delighted to host the World Premiere of the video that accompanies Katie’s latest single, It Was Then That I Knew Love.
And, now: here comes the main course that we’ve been waiting patiently for – Katie’s third album, What Love Is. Featuring ten brand new songs and discrete, yet wholly effective, musical contributions from Giacomo Smith (clarinet), Max Clilverd (pedal steel), Tom Mason (double bass) and Matt Ingham (drums), What Love Is is a triumph; an album that will not be straying far from my turntable for many weeks to come.
CLEAR, INTRICATE GUITAR AND A SPECIAL, UNIQUE, VOICE
The spirit of John Martyn is ever-present throughout these ten songs, and the influence of artists like Joni Mitchell, Judee Sill, Julie Byrne and, particularly, Michael Chapman are constantly detectable, too. But, really, the heady blend of folk-baroque and Pharoah Sanders-tinged jazz is Katie’s very own, and that claim to ownership is strengthened immeasurably by Katie’s clear, intricate, guitar work and by that special, unique, voice of hers.
It’s the album’s title track (and one of the four singles to preview the album) that gets What Love Is underway. A beautiful fingerpicked guitar passage provides the intro, before Katie’s deep, soothing vocals hit the listener with the force of a wooden mallet. Max’s pedal steel is divine, and the combined impact is almost overwhelming.
Photo: Lizzie Henshaw
INTIMATE
A few brushes of Matt’s snare drum opens the door to the folky, jazzy, dreamland of lead single, Come Back and Find Me. Katie’s voice has a slightly lighter touch here, but it loses none of its allure and Giacomo’s clarinet flourishes complete the song’s gentle, pastoral appeal.
“Intimate” is a word that applies so very frequently whenever the songs of Katie Spencer are the subject of discussion, and that’s certainly the case for the soft, slow and – yes – intimate Forget Me Not. Katie accompanies herself with a strummed acoustic guitar and, when the vocals spill out, it seems, for all the world, like she’s singing especially for you. And there’s another exemplary vocal performance waiting in the wings for Home, a song in which Katie deploys her signature vocal vibrato to devastating effect.
“FOLK FOR DEEP THINKERS”
My scribbled notes describe the instrumental Back to the Brightness as “folk for deep thinkers.” It’s a beautiful piece that encourages the listener’s mind to drift peacefully away, particularly when Max’s pedal steel joins Katie’s guitar. Relax, listen, and feel the world’s problems melt away like the snow in spring…
Katie picks her acoustic guitar and sings with a stunning intensity on the intimate, folky, Stranger, whilst Max fills what few gaps she leaves with his softly-weeping pedal steel licks. It’s truly wonderful and one of many highlights of this outstanding album.
POWERFUL AND HEARTFELT
Speaking of the thoughts that inspired the excellent It Was Then That I Knew Love – the latest of the four singles to be taken from the album – Katie says: “… Although I have written many songs on the subject of adoption before, this one is perhaps the most lyrically-direct to-date. It is the first time that I am sharing this part of myself and my family in this way; it feels like the right time and the song sits safely within the record, where I explore the depth and profoundness of love.” And that sentiment comes across clearly in lines like: “It was then that I knew love, and it existed beyond blood,” which Katie delivers with an intimacy that also holds a lot of power. The instrumental backing may be sparse, but it’s full of jazzy embellishments form Giacomo and Tom – and it all works perfectly!
The ethereal Cold Stone is yet another album highlight. It’s slow and atmospheric; Katie delivers her thoughtful vocals whilst Giacomo’s clarinet takes a jazzy voyage and guitars and pedal steel deliberate over each note and chord. In contrast, there’s a familiar Scottish, folky, flavour to Goodbye – a wistful song of parting with another truly heartfelt vocal from Katie.
EXEMPLIFIES THE WHOLE ALBUM
In the week that we lost the one and only Danny Thompson, it’s thoroughly appropriate that Tom Mason should embody the great man’s spirit with the bassline he provides for Carry It All, the album’s closing track. It’s a song that, in many ways, exemplifies the whole album, as the warmth and intimacy of Katie’s Karen Carpenter-inflected vocals come face-to-face with Tom’s jazzy bass and Giacomo’s spacy clarinet parts. It works wonderfully – an inspired sign-off to a flawless and engaging album.
Watch the official video to What Love Is – the album’s title track – below:
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