As well as being one of Britain’s leading folk singers, Fay Hield is also an academic. She lectures in Music at the University of Sheffield, specialising in the role folk music plays in the construction of communities and over the last couple of years she has been busy with a research project into how artists and audiences communicate. The good news is, that despite her busy schedule, she has announced that she is ready to return to the performing arena with a new solo album ‘Wrackline’.
Wrackline looks at traditional stories involving the ‘otherworld’ of fairies, ghosts and the animal kingdom, the new work explores our emotional responses to the space between their realm and our own. Working through imaginary space to make things real. “We all search to connect with others – we are entranced by those we cannot connect with and find ways to tell their stories to explain our own.”
The album is set to surface later this year and will contain some interpretations of traditional songs and responses to carefully selected songs exploring their meaning and drawing on personal experience and beliefs.
As a singer she is occupying the space between the songs and the listener, “they have to make sense to me before I can pass them on. This album is about finding sense in the unknown, and exploring what that tells me about who we are and who I am in the process”.
The sound is pared back and crystal clear – Fay picks out the stories on banjo accompanied by lines of swirling melody from Sam Sweeney’s fiddle and complex harmonic accompaniment by Rob Harbron’s sublime concertina.
Fay’s last album was Old Adam in 2016 which made quite a stir and included special guest appearances by Jon Boden and Martin Simpson, both of whom also contributed to her Orfeo album (2012), while Andy Bell’s production added a crisp and detailed clarity.
To use our reviewer’s words, Old Adam reaffirmed “her status as one of Britain’s leading singers across the spectrum of traditional and contemporary folk music” and that it is “an album where the material and its arrangements are in perfect equilibrium, allowing her clear and rich voice the space to deliver the songs with that rare mix of emotion and sensitivity which is the hallmark of her style.” We have no doubt that Wracklines will deliver the same punch, making it one of the most highly anticipated albums on the British folk scene for 2020.
More information and dates to be announced soon.