Oh Yeah - section of The Big List paper

by Stuart Bailie

"If you had to make an instant, elevator pitch for Paddy McKeown, you 'd say he was a presentable troubadour with attractive tunes. You would big up his poetry and his whirling string arrangements. He cuts it live, he's taking car eof business and if the public is interested in Scott Matthews, James Morrison and Ray LaMontagne, then our man Paddy is a proper contender.

The reality is more complex in that Paddy regards himself as part of a crack musical ensemble, featuring strings and sax. They play soul-jazz, looping time sequences and honking Arabesques, all to a handy level. This lot have just rebranded themselves as Cataon and were recently witnessed on Radio 1 and Radio Ulster's Across The Line.

Paddy is an unrepentant grunge kid and he's also partial to some of those Metallica chord changes. So while he works the falsetto and the melody lines that take the long journey home, it's not purely a Buckley-by-numbers gig. This is valuable since the gap between cute posturing and head-staggering talent is a substantial one. A low rent recording of 'Femme Fatale' - not to be confused with the Velvet Underground title - demonstrates teh emerging scheme. the drumsticks are lashing against the rims and the violin hits an edgy register. It's no obvious base for a pop song, but weirdly, it's almost there."