Jake Blount: Spider Tales
Those familiar with their folklore will know of Anansi, the spider trickster, originating from the Akan people in Ghana and an important figure in West African, African American and Caribbean folklore. Gathered in the Anansesem oral storytelling tradition, the tales relate how Anansi uses his wit and wisdom against oppressors more powerful than himself, and, as such, figured extensively among enslaved Africans and their American descendants as a form of cultural rebellion. It is upon these stories and tradition that banjo and fiddle player Blount, one of the few queer Black artists in the Appalachian folk field, draws for this striking album that looks upon the spiritual, humanitarian and environmental crises and seeks the strength of his forbears to find the will to survive.
Unapologetically no-frills and sounding true to the originals, while it will appeal to old-time music enthusiasts as well as those interested in the history of Black string music, there’s plenty here to spark the interest among the casually curious too.
James Elkington: Ever-Roving Eye
The overall sound of the album is of course largely down to the personality of James himself, his impeccable, crisp guitar picking and often intensely characterful voice. Still, much additional credit should be laid at the door of his collaborators. These comprise Nick Macri on bass and Macie Stewart on violin (both of whom had worked with James on Wintres Woma), augmented by Lia Kohl on cello, Paul Von Mertens on woodwinds, and The Weather Station’s Tamara Lindeman on backing vocals.
But, taking everything into account, the ultimate impression left by this mesmerising album is that of an uneasy, perplexed guy whose cynical despair is expressed in the memorable line from Nowhere Time “There’s a master plan somebody understands, And I wish that one was me”. However thoughtfully you might think James has put his music together. Such cryptic genius has a habit of being similarly inscrutable.
Jenny Sturgeon: The Living Mountain
Nan Shepherd’s book tends to inspire a kind of quiet and lyrical fanaticism in its readers, and naturally many wish to pay homage in some way or other. But the latest album by Scottish singer Jenny Sturgeon – also called The Living Mountain – is perhaps the most involved, loving and thorough tribute the book has received. In fact, it is more than a tribute. It seeks to reflect and interact with the Cairngorms in the same way that Shepherd’s book did, and Sturgeon has gone to extraordinarily detailed and loving lengths to make sure it succeeds. The result is something that stands alongside the book and alongside the mountains and has a kind of symbiotic relationship with both.
The final track, Being, is an attempt to take something away from the mountains, to learn from their wisdom in order to ‘find out who we are’. It’s a simple message really, but an important one: wilderness is valuable. Not as a commodity but as something that is rooted in human consciousness but also something that dwarfs human consciousness. Nan Shepherd understood this paradox better than anyone, and her writing has found a perfect musical equivalent in Jenny Sturgeon’s stunning, snow-encrusted and sun-dappled songs. She has created a work of rare beauty: to hear The Living Mountain is to hear the song of the Cairngorms.
Jiggy: Hypernova
Jiggy inevitably draws comparisons with Afro Celt Sound System, perhaps no surprise, as percussionist Robbie Harris has been a leading light in both. But they’re a far cry from being identical twins. While both meld world rhythms and instrumentation into the Celtic tradition, two aspects, for me, are significant. Jiggy have put down deeper roots into a distinctly Irish tradition and, while the two bands draw on both African and Indian instruments and modalities, Jiggy lean more towards the Indian. Jiggy describe themselves as more of a collective than a band and, for this album, around the seven core members, they’ve collected five guest vocalists and no less than fifteen guest musicians.
With Hypernova, Jiggy have pulled off that trickiest of balancing acts. An album that both encourage you out of your chair to get you dancing around the kitchen and, for those that stubbornly refuse to get up, it provides enough intricacies and subtleties to engage the armchair listener.
John Doyle: The Path of Stones
It’s been a long wait since John’s last solo album, nine years, but he’s hardly been idle in the interim, so there’s no real cause for complaint. Especially now that we can bask in the delights of an album that delivers just about everything one could have hoped for. Excellent musicianship, not just from John, but also from a perfectly assembled cast of guests, abundant evidence that John’s song writing is maturing as steadily and assuredly as a cask of Jameson’s 18 Years and an album that mixes songs and tunes into a heady cocktail that leaves you with a warm, self-satisfied glow. And, yes, all of that imagery came from repeatedly listening to The Path of Stones while stone-cold sober.
Joshua Burnell: Flowers Where The Horses Sleep
In essence, I think what I admire the most about Joshua Burnell is that he’s fighting the good fight for all us folk lovers, taking risks and boldly reaching out to grab the attention and imagination of more than just our, already won, community. The method in his ambition is creating brilliant accessible music, bursting at the seams with ideas, imagery and an assured ability with melody and song structure, I sincerely hope that he catches the ears of many more people going forward. Outstanding.
Joshua Burnside: Into The Depths of Hell
The follow-up to the Belfast-based alt-folk singer’s debut seems well-titled from the opening effects of I Saw The Night, an industrial clank and clatter, aural strobe, muffled chatter that make Peaky Blinders sound tranquil before he starts singing like some calcified Robin Williamson backed by a droning organ. It could indeed be emanating from the pits of some Bosch-like inferno, Joshua Burnside describing the album as “an absurdist examination at the suffering humans inflict on each other every day and the innate human condition that demands we find some humour in it lest we collapse.” Park any expectations of cheery folk singalongs at the door.
Into the Depths of Hell is a potent and thought-provoking album, one to cherish.
Julie Abbé: Numberless Dreams
It is hard to believe that Numberless Dreams is Julie Abbé’s first album as a folk singer. Her singing is passionate but composed, her arrangements delicate but assured, and her musical palette runs from light to dark in a way that perfectly suits her material, particularly the strange and wild poems of Yeats whose words skirt the occult and brim with the deep knowledge of nature and human love. Like the sound of the wind in the reeds from which Yeats took inspiration, Abbé’s music is full of shifting natural beauty, whispers and sighs that could be sounds of sorrow or of love. Numberless Dreams is masterful in its delivery and intriguing in its opacity.
Kris Drever: Where The World Is Thin
…a new recording from Drever is always welcome and there is no exception here. Sincere, heartfelt and timeless...
Themes of memory, resilience, fragility, and longing filter through the album, ensuring a somewhat ephemeral and reflective recording. Drever’s voice and delivery is as idiosyncratic and rich as ever. His sincere Scottish brogue is never mannered, always effortlessly natural. Where The World Is Thin is a charming album. Confident and mature in its content, and beautifully performed. A fine treat as the nights draw in.
Laura Cortese & The Dance Cards: Bitter Better
Laura Cortese’s four-piece band have already been widely recognised as something of a progressive folk outfit. They are a quartet of string players who all sing and whose primary instruments are fiddles, cellos and the double bass. But the sound that such a combo might conjure up in your mind, a cacophony of sweeping bowed strings perhaps, really is nothing close to what you actually hear on record. Neither is it overly experimental or difficult, yet the results are often ground-breaking and unique. Maybe this is because when together, for every period this group spend working and developing material, they also love to dance, which is something that positively bounces out from their music. They are full of life; even when contemplating its ups and downs, there’s an energy and vitality to the work. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that ‘Bitter Better’ is very much a modern pop record, albeit one that’s made by people who have soaked up the folk tradition and are more than comfortable with classical instrumentations and structures.