Guitar Heroes: Siobhan Wilson’s ‘Whatever Helps’.

I was recently thrilled to hear how the incredibly talented Siobhan Wilson’s album There Are No Saints was nominated and shortlisted for the coveted Scottish Album of The Year award. (I believe the winner will be announced sometime later this week.) The Scottish Music Industry Association in particular, singled out her “sparse arrangements of electric guitar, piano and cello” as being worthy of recognition. Interestingly, when Siobhan talks excitedly about her love for playing the guitar, I am always reminded of this quote she gave me for our interview back in May: ‘Banging out chords on the guitar can be like screaming and it’s wonderful.” To be fair she made this comment in relation to the cathartic release she gets from playing guitar, especially the cello. Furthermore, she may say ‘banging out chords’ but in truth her relationship with her guitar is quite symbiotic.

From her acclaimed album There Are No Saints comes a song called Whatever Helps that deals with the subject matter of depression. In short, it is an incredibly moving song that centres around Siobhan’s gorgeous vocals. But underneath her message is also importantly the gently executed sound of her guitar. With enough ‘maximum fuzz with minimum fuss’ it skilfully creates a very surreal mood. The studio album version is here but please enjoy this live take here below.

Photo credit: The header image is presumably copyright of Siobhan Wilson. I make use it it here under the rationale of ‘fair use’ because no free alternative image of Siobhan playing guitar exists. I am not the uploader of the You Tube clip embedded here.