Reflecting on the past 12 months, I’d say two of my three personal obsessions have held up and delivered the goods. The boys in red and white from North London have been a constant source of frustration and even embarrassment. Thankfully a captivating Ashes and a World Cup win made it a vintage summer of Cricket and musically, as ever, there has never been a shortage of thrills and revelation. Here’s my top ten from the wonderful world of Folk Radio.
Stood out like an album of the year from the very first listen. For one it doesn’t sound like anything else, ‘2020’ is in a field of its own. Dawson stretches song structures to breaking point but it’s the narrative that holds it all together. The singing, which can jump from semi-spoken to a jarring falsetto in the same line, is a shock initially but carries an almost operatic grandeur once you invest in the stories being told within. And there’s the crux of the genius on show here, the way every dark corner of modern-day middle England living is recited through the prism of intimate vignettes. It’s a place where mental health, racial abuse, life-sapping monotony and hopelessness abounds and yet, a kind of beleaguered humanity cuts through. This is a record on which you hear the inner monologues of souls teetering on the edge, but you’ll also encounter lines such as “man on, man on… you’re not Lionel Messi just pass the bloody ball”.
Mama’s Broke – Count The Wicked
This was the strongest debut album I heard released in 2019. It was hardcore in its folk purity and totally assured in execution. Regrettably, I couldn’t catch Mama’s Broke in the flesh this year although various live pieces of film appeared allowing us all a glimpse of the young duo’s magnetism. Be in no doubt, their singing combined with Amy Lou’s banjo and guitar with Lisa Marie’s fiddle, mandolin and variety of other analogue percussive ticks is the real deal alright.
Back in 2006 I absolutely raved about the Vetiver album ‘To Find Me Gone’, in fact, it remains my album of the year from back then. The Devendra Banhart connection lumped it in with a scene known as ‘freak folk’ but I couldn’t help but feel that Andy Cabic’s writing rose above such restrictive categorising. Furthermore, Cabic would frequently reference in interviews the kind of smooth 70s rock that most hipsters would run a mile from, showing a writer with no intention of belonging to anybody’s scene but his own. The past ten years have seen Vetiver drift into the Laurel Canyon, soft rock vibe definitively and arrive at a place where they can deliver a sunny delight of an album like ‘Up On High’. Put simply, the music of Vetiver makes you feel good. It relaxes and pours simple melodic medicine into your soul; we need a lot of that in times like these.
Anna Tivel makes music with a gentle, subtle power. There’s a hush and a poise to her delivery, sometimes the vocals aren’t too far from a whisper in the ear prior to, as on ‘Figure It Out, lush strings floating in as the song elevates into the clouds. There’s a dissonance in the production too, murmurings not too far below the surface that illustrate that all is not exactly as it should be within songs of acutely observed real-life trials and journeys. ‘The Question’ was a keeper of an album, beautifully produced by a songwriter maturing like a fruit red wine.
Sean Taylor – The Path Into Blue
Folk music is the real people’s music and an important part of that tradition is topical song writing. It surprises me that in such turbulent, divisive political times there isn’t an absolute avalanche of songs being written about current world events. It also frustrates me that, when an artist like Sean Taylor steps up and delivers an album of accessible, incisive, witty and devastating social commentary such as this, that it doesn’t occupy a space within the musical mainstream. ‘The Path Into Blue’ is a 2019 bulletin addressing the big topics with candour; especially Trump, refugees, Brexit and Grenfell. But the heavy-duty content doesn’t overwhelm the music, the whole album is also a superb listen.
Joan Shelley – Like The River Loves The Sea
Every year a new album by an artist whose back catalogue had previously passed me by will catch my ear. In 2019 this happened around the release of Joan Shelley’s new album, a gentle and serene collection of finely crafted Americana. This isn’t a sound that knocks you over the head and demands your attention, but that voice and those gorgeous songs work their way in and whet your appetite for so much more. My subsequent trawl through her back catalogue did not disappoint, it revealed that Joan Shelley has been making music of a fine quality all the way through the 2010’s decade.
Steve Gunn – The Unseen In Between
Wonderful record with some of the juiciest production, it’s deep waves of rolling guitars and cloudbusting harmonica recall the great Fred Neil on his classic ‘Dolphins’. And that’s just the opening. But for all the sonic touches and delightful textures that drew me into this album, it was arguably Steve’s mission to “consider what the process is to write a simple song” that proved to be the most effective ingredient. And so, simpler songs recorded with a craftsman’s attention to detail combined to make an album well worth repeated listening.
When I jumped up in excitement at the Cambridge Folk Festival this year having chanced upon Chloe Foy, I had a nagging feeling that I’d seen her somewhere before but couldn’t place it. Subsequent post-festival investigation revealed her to be a close collaborator of Jesca Hoop and, having joined those dots, it was an association that made sense. Referring then to Foy’s bruised indie-folk songcraft, I’d pull those same words out of the bag in referencing ‘Stonechild’. It was a record in which Hoop fully realised her vision and featured some delightful cameos, especially from This Is The Kit’s Kate Stables on ‘Outside Of Eden’ which essays a future-thinking lyrical imagination worthy of ‘Black Mirror’.
The Waterboys – Where The Action Is
Of the artists who I’ve followed for decades, Van Morrison’s ‘Three Chords And The Truth’ was a strong late contender for my top ten but it’s his old Celtic soul brother Mike Scott who gets the nod. There’s almost something predictable about reporting on another fine Waterboys album these days, ‘Where The Action In’ was a mixed bag sonically and didn’t really settle on one over-riding style in the way some of the back catalogue does. Nevertheless, Mike Scott’s mojo remains as switched on as ever and there’s plenty of evidence here that he can still catch songs as they fall from the sky like comets.
I am all for a bit of genre-busting, the only purpose these terminologies serve is to make life easier for music critics trying to describe what doesn’t need describing. Music should just be listened to and the thing I love about writing for Folk Radio is the emphasis we put on getting the readers to get on and listen to the music immediately. Eilen Jewell’s 2019 album crossed the lines between folk, country, rock and rockabilly with consummate ease and gave me one of my best summer listening highlights.