Emily Mae Winters: High Romance
With its title inspired by a line in a Keats poem, High Romance marks a quantum leap for Emily Mae Winters that sees her fully immersed in her Southern Americana influences, setting a new benchmark by which future Americana albums should be measured.
Erlend Apneseth Trio: Salika, Molika
Erlend Apneseth Trio demonstrate that wildness is still possible in folk music, as is a democratic, inclusive form of experimentalism. You are unlikely to hear a more innovative album all year, or one more in touch with its roots. Salika, Molika is an avant-folk marvel.
You must give Cinelli great kudos for his boundless approach to these recordings, he’s allowed the music to guide him down many satisfying and unpredictable avenues. ‘Night Songs’ is an album with a clear thematic purpose that emphatically realises its ambition.
Garcia Peoples – One Step Behind
Over the course of forty minutes, Garcia Peoples stake out new territory. Instead of being “Jerry’s kids” they are a creative conglomerate playing in a completely different framework. Having learned from the past, they have chosen to go off in their own direction. They are entering uncharted territory, building on what has gone before while firmly headed toward the future.
Gee’s Bend Quilters – Boykin, Alabama: Sacred Spirituals of Gee’s Bend
The massively uplifting impact of the Quilters’ four earthy, uncannily complimentary voices is miraculous, and it’s something of a revelation to receive into your soul such earnest, dedicated performances. Big voices, big time inspiration.
Glen Hansard: This Wild Willing
At first glance ‘This Wild Willing’ is twelve tracks on an album. In reflection, it is a Symphony made up of twelve movements. A symphony born from a desire to collaborate, to open new doors, connect with people from all ends of the earth, and completed with a joy and yearning to create something infinitely precious. Under no matter what guise, be it the Frames, the Swell Season, this is Glen Hansards best complete work by a country mile. I doubt if it’s going to sell in the quantities of U2 or Thin Lizzy, but I hope that history sees it as one of the finest albums to ever come out of Ireland.
Granny’s Attic: Wheels of the World
Wheels of the World is a remarkable achievement: an album that not only sounds like a classic folk album of many years vintage, but it can also stand head-and-shoulders with the best of them too. And it seems like they’ve only just started…
Green Ribbons (ft. Debbie Armour, Frankie Armstrong, Jinnwoo, Alasdair Roberts): S/T
On Green Ribbons, each singer brings something unique and subtly experimental to the table, and the result is a collection of songs that transcends genre and fuses the history of vocal music with the most exciting aspects of its present.
Gwilym Bowen Rhys’ “Arenig” is a work of art that is as reassuring in its quality for modern folk music as it is confident and entertaining. A highly accomplished and original album that cannot fail to dazzle in just about every way.
Hannah James & The Jigdoll Ensemble: The Woman And Her Words
James has created an album that explores life from countless angles. It is sad, fun, wise, angry and thought-provoking in equal measure and it has a real flair for the dramatic. With The Woman And Her Words, James has established herself as a highly individual and almost unparalleled songwriter.