Mike Davies

On the final song of Linda Thompson’s Proxy Music there’s a refrain that pretty much summarises the whole album “Bound together in blood and song, who can break us?/When we are singing loud and strong, who can take us?” I hear no arguments to the contrary.

Paul Armfield’s Trees is an arboreal delight, commissioned by Gift To Nature, the songs give a unique voice to the different trees that grow on Sibden Hill in Shanklin on the Isle of Wight.

The rhythms of Anna Tivel’s ‘Living Thing’ ride waves of anxiety, resilience and hope, washing up on a shore that ultimately looks out to the light on the horizon rather than the darkness behind.

After a six-year hiatus, Old Man Luedecke returns with ‘She Told Me Where To Go’; re-energised and reinvented, this is one of his finest albums to date.

Ned Roberts’ Heavy Summer is a pastoral folk album with gentle Laurel Canyon musical breezes and echoes of Nick Drake, James Taylor, and Tim Hardin…a meditative and quietly absorbing listening experience.

Produced by Jim Moray and featuring several special guests, Out of the Rain is a glorious, re-energised return from Blair Dunlop that should comfortably reinstate him among folk rock’s upper echelons.

On her long awaited third solo album Wanderer, Ruth Moody’s striking vocals sketch out true life moments with a warm intimacy that stays with you long after the album’s end.

For ‘Anniversary’, Abigail Lapell celebrates commitment and growing old together…with music and songs such as these, let’s hope her albums turn into an annual event.

Josienne Clarke’s ‘Parenthesis, I’ is an affirmation that out of the deepest darkness sometimes comes the brightest light…to paraphrase her lyric, Clarke spins her alchemy, she gives us hope.

Massachusetts duo Mark Mandeville & Raianne Richards return with Making Promises, their fourth studio album, once more steeped in their close harmony folksy Americana with several stripped-back acoustic songs inspired by their marriage in 2021. 

With Ruth Theodore’s meticulously constructed melodies and literate, open-hearted and relatable lyrics, ‘I Am I Am’ is her finest album to date.

Canada’s The Deep Dark Woods return with another fine selection of folk songs – Broadside Ballads Vol III. It’s a quietly intoxicating album featuring the warm-voiced Ryan Boldt, his band, and special guest Erin Rae.