Has another year really come and gone? Another year of Covid19, antibacterial soaked hands and masked faces? Time has moved strangely these last few months, or has it been years? It feels odd to be compiling a review of a year when, in so many ways, time feels as though it has stood still.
We have been lucky too. To help us through these weird days, we have been blessed in abundance with some remarkable releases over the last year or so, and there is still much to look forward to in the year to come. But what an unpredictable and challenging year it has been for the artists too. So, if you have found joy, solace and comfort through any artist over the last year or so, please do pay it back. Buy the CD’s (for yourself and as gifts), get tickets to online gigs (and in-person ones when available), visit the artist’s sites and spend money on their merch. Thank the musicians you have loved for getting us through the strangest of times. Simple things can mean so much just now, and we need music more so than ever.
And on that note, as a quick refresher of the musicians and albums which have helped me traverse 2021, and compiled in simple alphabetical order, here are my top ten releases of the year. Enjoy, and here’s to better times!
Marina Allen: Candlepower
Sometimes an artist and a record comes out of nowhere and stays with you. Marina Allen, for me, is one such performer. Released back in July, her debut EP is a record I find myself returning to again and again. Chilled, with touches of jazz and Californian folk, it is an ageless and entirely mesmeric listen. Running at only 20 minutes, it may be short, but it is brimming with ideas, sounds and atmosphere. A beautifully cinematic little touch of magic.
Album Review | Interview | Bandcamp
Bellowhead: Reassembled
After four years, the wildest, most inventive, and sheer fun group on the folk/trad scene were back! The group returned for a special online gig in December 2020 before releasing Reassembled in June. All of which they were only able to do due to other plans being cancelled because of Covid19. I can’t think of many things to be thankful to the global pandemic for, but the return of Bellowhead is certainly one. An enthusiastically welcomed and energetic joy.
MG Boulter: Clifftown
A beautifully chilled, haunting release from Southend-on-Sea’s resident poet and chronicler. A very British perspective exploring the quiet sleepiness of an out of season seaside town, but one which plays with the mood of 50’s and 60’s Americana. Melancholic, bittersweet, but entirely affectionate, the album is a heartfelt love letter to Boulter’s home.
Album Review | Interview | Bandcamp
The Felice Brothers: From Dreams to Dust
I’m a genuine sucker for some good quality Americana folk/country rock, and the Felice Brothers never disappoint. This release saw some changes to their line-up and also saw the band tinker with their sound, and a triumph it was too. Richly ambitious, it marked a new evolution in the brother’s story, but what an exciting journey to join them on. An example of just how avant-garde and experimental folk-rock can be and a thoroughly absorbing listen.
Lady Nade: Willing
We’ll come on to the Bellowhead boys, Spiers & Boden, shortly, but one thing to be incredibly thankful to the duo for was an introduction to many more of the glorious Lady Nade who accompanied the boys on their tour earlier this year. I didn’t get the chance the see them live, sadly, and to my shame, Lady Nade wasn’t a name I was familiar with before 2021 (although I see she first appeared on these pages in 2020 with the premiere of her single Ain’t One Thing), but what a voice, and what a performer. With a playful attitude to country and folk, simultaneously timeless and incredibly seductive, her album Willing was a genuine highlight.
Katharine Priddy: The Eternal Rocks Beneath
What a debut! Haunting, beguiling, ethereal, Priddy’s album was crafted over two years before arriving in the summer of 2021. A perfect blend of Priddy’s finger-picking guitar and entrancing vocals, alongside her songwriter talents, marked the emergence of a major new talent on the folk and music scene. An impressive, accomplished and mesmerising release.
Album Review | Interview | Buy CD
Jon Wilks: Up The Cut
Way back in February, the mighty John Wilks released the rather gorgeous Up The Cut, a fine collection of traditional folks songs selected from Child and Roud with a distinctly Brum tinge… A stripped-back affair, just Wilks’ idiosyncratic, earthy voice and guitar, it provided a heart-warming way to spend the early winter months of 2021. Rather cannily, Wilks included a version of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’, so what better time to revisit than Christmas 2021.
Peggy Seeger: First Farewell
At 85, the indomitable Peggy Seeger released her latest album with a very mischievous title. How can Peggy not be in anyone’s top ten for 2021? Pure piano and Peggy’s ageing, yet still richly characterful, voice cheers the soul. Political and environmental songs flavour the album, as, of course, they should do, but there are songs on age, love and goodbyes, all touched with Peggy’s inimitable humour and style.
Spiers and Boden: Fallow Ground
Not only did 2021 mark the return of Bellowhead, but the band’s matchless John Spiers and Jon Boden got back together for the first time to record new music as a duo after a break of thirteen years. The joyful Fallow Ground marked a rousing return. The pair have an astonishing talent for reinventing old songs, ensuring they emerge fresh but always respectful of tradition. Add into the mix their sheer talents as musicians – fiddle and squeezebox have rarely sounded so good – and you have one of the most exciting pairings on the folk scene today, or over the last couple of decades, frankly. Superb.
Album Review | Interview | Bandcamp
Various, Fire Draw Near
Curated by Lankum’s Ian Lynch, Fire Draw Near, collected a cleverly considered selection of songs, recorded over the last 60 years, all steeped in the Irish tradition. The anthology was a true labour of love and a powerful and evocative tribute to the songs and performers who have influenced Irish music and Ian in particular. Some familiar names here, but some are less well known too—a worthy, yet entirely fresh and vital, collection.