Thomas Blake

Hack-Poets Guild features three of the finest musical minds that the British folk scene has to offer, and on Blackletter Garland, an album that is more than the sum of its parts, they demonstrate the possible futures of folk music, all of them varied and vibrant.

Folk music has always been inextricably tied up with history, but rarely has the relationship been as mysterious and rewarding as it is here with Milkweed’s ‘The Mound People’.

On Grief in the Kitchen and Mirth in the Hall, Alasdair Roberts’ performances are musically exquisite, while his singing has never sounded so emotionally charged. The quality of Roberts’ music is astoundingly high, and nearly three decades into his career, that shows no sign of letting up.

The songs on Jonathan Day’s ‘Sakura’ are characterised by a profound philosophical insight and the importance of music and nature. But most of all, it is an album about love and the small but important connections between humans in a world that can feel overwhelmingly big.

Through ‘In The Quiet Of The Waiting’, Elly Lucas delivers a small jewel. From a 150-year-old hymn, transformed into a secular rallying cry, and a cover of The Moth by the criminally underrated Anne Lister, the EP has an understated sparkle and a deceptive emotional depth.

Meg Baird’s ‘Furling’ is unlike anything she has done before. Impressively, she and Charlie Saufley recorded every instrument and the intimacy of their musical connection is plain to see. Baird has mastered the balancing act between maturity and eclecticism perfectly, and the results are spellbinding.

Serious Glimmers is the latest offering from Bristol-based guitarist Glenn Kimpton. He is never afraid to navigate the more complex waters of experimentalism and improvisation; often complex and always highly rewarding, it is the perfect introduction to his art.

While The Great White Sea Eagle shares much with James Yorkston’s previous album, it somehow manages to hit harder on an emotional and visceral level. A new Yorkston album is always a bracing experience, this one more so than most.

There is an openness to La Bête Blanche, a delight in music’s power to elucidate complex ideas simply, and with good humour…. Whatever genre they happen to be joyously ransacking, Storm the Palace are masters of the art of communicating.

Thomas Blake shares his Top 10 Albums of 2022 featuring Maxine Funke, Big Thief, Richard Dawson, Dana Gavanski, Burd Ellen, The Shovel Dance Collective, Bill Callahan, Jacken Elswyth, One Leg One Eye & Angeline Morrison.

The Shovel Dance Collective’s The Water is the Shovel of the Shore is one of the most forward-thinking and original collections of traditional material you’re likely to hear this year, or any year.

The essence of The Little Unsaid’s songcraft is that good things (strange and remarkable things, too) can come out of bad times or uncomfortable situations. Their music is all about those contrasts, and Fable illustrates them more sharply than anything they’ve done before.