Stables: Silhouettes
My final definitive impression is that Stables made the correct decision in continuing their creative work together. It’s doesn’t take a massive leap of the imagination to hear an accessible song like ‘Marathon’ playlisted on daytime Radio 6 Music and with a break like that, there’s so much going on in Stables sound that would attract a massive audience. And the message that this album imparts holds true; if you can find strength in unity and combine it with a true love for what you do, then the possibilities are endless.
Stick in the Wheel: Hold Fast
The final track, Forward, is perhaps the most potent example of the almost alchemical way the pair fuse the ancient and the modern. The treated vocals and rippling synths hint at some kind of future-pop madness: there’s even a hint (albeit a downbeat hint) of the playful modernism of PC Music in there, except the bubblegum lyrics are replaced with a message of urban utopianism based on a Yiddish lament. It’s an incredible moment in which you can hear one of the many possible futures of folk music beginning to play out. And yet what is perhaps more important is the fact that you can also hear a possible future of society, and it is a future based on hope and the tolerance of difference. This is what Stick In The Wheel have always been about. Their acceptance of diverse musical forms reflects their radical desire to change things for the better, and on Hold Fast they have begun in a small way to make that change possible. It is an urgent and quite brilliant album.
Suzzy Roche and Lucy Wainwright Roche: I Can Still Hear You
While recording albums at home was sounding cliché in 2020, in this instance, maybe it was a positive twist of fate that, just a week or so into recording in Nashville, COVID forced the duo to return to their respective homes in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The resulting album is their finest hour yet, it’s a musically gentle listening experience, suffused with both love and sadness and, as the title implies, a reminder that while we may be apart our voices are not silenced.
Tamikrest: Tamotaït
While this is a band that can play with gentleness and restraint, they can also play with unbridled abandon. When the percussion of Ag Mohamedine, Ag Tiglia’s bass and the drums of Nicholas Grupp kick in on Anha Achal Wad Namda, the band rocks with a sense of fury, it’s three minutes and thirty-seven seconds of pure bliss.
Rather than being defined in by African music, or protest music, Tamikrest is a band that expands those vocabularies. Tamotaït not only enlarges the world we know, it also pushes us closer, illustrating a path to what music can become.
The Bonny Men: The Broken Pledge
We all want to play tunes that others have played, and some are lucky to have been taught by masters, but The Broken Pledge is an album that shows how this handing on of the music, the tradition, is carried out very successfully. Clear the floor and start dancing.
The Haar: The Haar
…the addition of Molly Donnery’s robust and rangy vocals singing tales that still resonate gives the album a wonderful feel of the romantic and old that sets it apart, while keeping it related. The Haar is also a very evocative record, bringing senses of the pain and futility of war and the salt of the ocean, as well as the beauty of the land and the strength of human relationships through its words and music. We need more music like this; spontaneous, alive and affecting, The Haar will take you on a journey and have you appreciating the purest of life’s pleasures. Wonderful stuff.
The Rheingans Sisters: Receiver
Throughout the album, songs feed back into the visual elements of the CD packaging. Nowhere is this more evident than in The Photograph. The importance of visual imagery in the telling and retelling of history (here in the context of the Bloody Sunday massacre) is explored in a way that reflects the striking visual impact made by the album’s artwork. This constant tying-up of creative threads is a balancing act that Receiver pulls off spectacularly.
The final waltz that tops off the album is delicate and endearingly humble, a paean to the joys of simplicity. The Rheingans Sisters have earned the right to embrace that simplicity after all the brilliant complexity and sparkling diversity on show. In Receiver they have created a masterpiece of modern folk music as well as a captivating physical artefact.
The West Ocean String Quartet: Atlantic Edge
There is such an amount of high-end musicianship and composing present on Atlantic Edge that it will benefit a huge amount from repeated listening. That’s not to say this is an album that is difficult to get to grips with; its music is dynamic and shifting but never inaccessible. It is excellent and faultlessly played throughout by a group of musicians that clearly know each other exceptionally well and can musically converse to the point that the piece is subtly and elegantly elevated. And it is the word ‘elegant’ that was present a lot for me when listening to the album; there is much subtlety in these complex works and many small details that reveal themselves with each listen. At once playful, focused, narratively strong and highly respectful of heritage, Atlantic Edge is a triumph of musical prowess and a master class in beautifully blending traditional music with classical styles. It is an exceptional album.
Varo: Varo
Varo come from the same sphere of Dublin musicians that has recently given us the likes of Lisa O’Neill, Ye Vagabonds and Lankum, and while these acts are different in many ways, they all share a deep understanding of traditional music, and of how to balance the desire to preserve the genre’s heritage with the need to create a form of music that is fresh and new. It is an exciting time for Irish folk music, and Varo’s accomplished debut should position them at the forefront of the scene.
Yorkston/Thorne/Khan – Navarasa : Nine Emotions
The album’s closer – and at twelve and a half minutes its longest track – is Darbari, a still and meditative pool of a track that takes inspiration from both Asian and European musical forms, and in particular the drone. Yorkston’s Swedish nyckelharpa feels at home next to the sarangi, and Thorne’s bass playing has a loose, improvisational feel, moving confidently between the impressionistic and the minimalistic. The track – and by extension the album as a whole – achieves a kind of serenity that is certainly spiritual but is somehow completely secular and entirely inclusive. Its influences are clearly visible, but the way those influences are put together creates a kind of music that is original, exciting and wholly unique.
Keep an eye out for more ‘Best of 2020’ Album Lists over the next week or so from some of our review team.