Her most focussed, offering the listener a complete audio journey. ‘I feel like you do a lot of looking back,’ she says, ‘looking forward, looking at your life, and looking out of the window.’What a Boost is a creative high (so far) for Rozi Plain, so let’s hope this subtle-but-stunning album gives her the boost she so richly deserves.
Samantha Whates: Waiting Rooms
It would be easy to draw comparisons with other singers but that would be lazy and disingenuous to Samantha whose voice hides little in the way of emotion but it is not mawkish. It is empathy, not sympathy we hear. Samantha may be concerned about what she is going to do now that the recording has been completed. I expect she will be kept very busy. Excellent.
Sarah Louise: Nighttime Birds And Morning Stars
Nighttime seeks to and succeeds in challenging and pushing the concept of solo guitar music into a new realm. Even with just that in mind, this album is a triumph, but adding the fact that the music itself is so utterly beautiful, patient and often thrilling, Nighttime is a wonderful achievement that further demonstrates the talent and unique artistic vision of Sarah Louise.
Sean Taylor: The Path Into Blue
There are moments when his delicious caressing of the lyrics reminds me of Mike Scott at his most incisive; I can also hear the soulfulness of Ray LaMontagne at times too. Sean Taylor has recorded an album on a par with the strongest work by either of those high-ranking acts with ‘The Path Into Blue’. He has also written one of the premier topical song albums of our time. All the news that is fit to sing, indeed!
Show Of Hands: Battlefield Dance Floor
With ‘Battlefield Dance Floor’, Show of Hands have put together one of the most cohesive, diverse and persuasive sets of their entire career and one of the most consistently adventurous collections in their catalogue.
Smith & McClennan: Small Town Stories
To sound so lush and yet so simultaneously blue isn’t a trick any old vocalist can pull out of the bag. But that’s where I believe Smith & McClennan have triumphed on this debut release, in creating personal music that tells us more about who they are than we’ve ever heard before and suggests they’re only at the beginning of a fruitful musical adventure.
Son of Town Hall: The Adventures of Son of Town Hall
As The Son Of Town Hall, Ben Parker and David Berkeley have created an album that plays like nothing else you will hear this year. Equal parts care and craftsmanship, joy and sorrow, it is a splendour to behold.
The Human Project can be seen as part of a larger multimedia conceit, but equally, it can stand alone, and it does so by dint of Bethany Stenning’s unique vision as a songwriter, her evident skill as a musician and arranger and her startlingly original voice. It is an ambitious, arresting and constantly interesting work of art in its own right.
Steve Gunn: The Unseen In Between
The Unseen In Between is befitting of its title; a mysterious and mesmeric edgeland offering glimpses into the underbelly of a half-remembered neighbourhood, and the trials and habits of its outcasts…you might just become rapt by something that really does have the power to take your breath away altogether.
Enclosure is an album that very few other musicians could have made, partly because it transcends considerations like ‘traditional’ and ‘contemporary’ without losing sight of the important issues it highlights. It is full of apparent contradictions that resolve into fully realised ideas: it always feels intimate and yet its themes are universal, it is steeped in the history of place and society and yet it constantly looks to the future, and it is an album about captivity that revels in its own musical freedom.