Mike Davies

Taking its name from a street in Birmingham that a teenage Jon Wilks would busk, Needless Alley is described as a patchwork of memories and marks a more autobiographical approach to his writing after previous trad folk-inclined material. These songs from his mental attic are definitely worth exploring, and, as a guitarist, he fully deserves his place alongside names such as Jansch, Carthy, and Simpson.

Ron Sexsmith’s 18th studio album, “Hangover Terrace,” is a raw and honest collection that explores themes of friendship, self-examination, and the passage of time. Despite its “wounded” core, the album radiates warmth and optimism through tracks like the tender “House Of Love” and the rocking “Camelot Towers.” The album showcases Sexsmith’s enduring talent and ability to please audiences with his sincerity and soul.

On Animal Poem, Anna Tivel’s latest album, she asks, “In the face of endless avarice and cruelty, how do we talk about the realness of love? How do we talk about destiny from the balcony of a nation in decline? How does our attention shape the way we touch the natural world?” It’s a masterclass in subtlety and emotional depth that doesn’t demand your attention but instead earns it.

Following a diagnosis of a degenerative nerve condition and told he would no longer be able to play guitar, Amit Dattani taught himself a new way of playing, and, several years on, defiantly returns with ‘Wrong Kind of One’, an album that’s as strong as his debut and deserving of further glowing accolades.

Kate Daisy Grant and Nick Pynn’s “Songs For The Trees” is an enchanting album that originated from a simple request to sing about a different tree each month. Inspired by ancient arboreal folklore, Grant’s lyrics are captivating, enhanced by Pynn’s arrangements that give the album a spellbinding quality. It’s one of the year’s finest albums and an evergreen for the future.

Lunatraktors, the innovative “broken-folk” duo, unveil Quilting Points: a captivating album of reworked archival fragments, salvaged songs, and field recordings. Born from collaborations with artists and institutions, it weaves together diverse soundscapes. From the brooding melancholia of “Diffraction Pattern” to the pagan pastoral sounds of “The Hoard” and the defiant “Now The Time,” you’ll be hard-pushed to find a more marvellously inventive or mesmerisingly idiosyncratic folk album this year.

Thematically and musically, Between The Covers is unlike anything Paul Armfield’s done before; it’s a literary and literally gorgeous listen that deserves the musical equivalent of a Booker prize.

Musically, lyrically and thematically, a fire rages through the Brown Horse’s sophomore album, All The Right Weaknesses. It’s a stupendous follow-up that should see it easily featured on many year-end best-of lists.

Kris Delmhorst’s ‘Ghosts In The Garden’ is an entrancing album not about isolation and emptiness but, as she sings on the title track, how “everyone’s here/no one’s gone”.

With poetic touchstones that range from the metaphysical and Shakespeare to Dickinson, Plath and Auden, Polly Paulusma’s Wildfires is unquestionably her masterpiece, which, like the title, burns and blazes, forged alike in the anguish and euphoria of love and life.

The music Seth Lakeman makes and the passion with which he makes it has never faltered; The Granite Way is another exemplary reason why he’s the benchmark of contemporary English folk music.

Chatham Rabbits’ fourth album, Be Real with Me, is an honest and open album veined with regrets and desires that moves beyond their bluegrass borders to explore new musical territory.