Karl S. Williams

Go listen to ‘Rainbows in the Gasoline’ - On tour now!

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Rainbows in the Gasoline was recorded live-to-tape in a fibro cottage up on Mount Nebo in South-East Queensland, with light streaming in the windows and dogs sleeping on the floor.

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Karl S. Williams now takes a turn into more intimate territory with Rainbows in the Gasoline, an album of raw solo performances.

Always difficult to define and eclectic in his output, this album presents Karl S. Williams in the way he most often performs live, a solitary man and an instrument, and contains a selection of material that broadens the scope of his oeuvre further than ever.

Stylistically, the album encompasses folky finger picking in the vein of Nick Drake, a touch of Townes Van Zandt or Michael Hurley, through to swerving piano ballads that call to mind early Tom Waits and Nina Simone.

Recorded directly to two-track tape, the sound is timeless, slightly hazy and occasionally wrinkled. A sensitive and authentic document of these performances which are delivered with just an acoustic guitar, an upright piano and a voice.

Harking to J. D. Salinger’s “puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them” here that image is emblematic of the confounding duality of life, at once beautiful and terrible. This sense pervades the album. It is a resignation, acceptance and even a celebration of humanity’s inherent brokenness - and it is with this attitude that the songs on Rainbows inspect themes of mortality, loss and devotion.