Thomas Blake

An Evening With Nancy Kerr And James Fagan captures one of folk music’s most enduring and talented acts in their natural habitat and provides the perfect snapshot of the duo at the top of their game.

Edgelarks have created an album that captures something long-lasting, universal and difficult to pin down: the nature of human happiness and the need for hope, not just now but in perpetuity. And in that respect Feather is an uplifting triumph.

Stenning doesn’t just collaborate with a group of fellow artists. Her concept can itself be seen as a kind of collaboration between art and the outside world. An ambitious, arresting and constantly interesting work of art in its own right.

We talk to The Askew Sisters, one of the most refreshing and exciting acts in folk music, about their new album Enclosure which is set to be one of the albums of the year.

It may have taken the best part of forty years for this album to see the light of day, but it still feels like something of a landmark release, and credit must go to Fledg’ling for finally making it available. It is a welcome addition to a consistently excellent body of work by one of the twentieth century’s very finest folk singers.

With The Little Unsaid, John Elliott has carved out a niche as a poet of mental disintegration, a chronicler of very real and very difficult human emotions. But his songs are not without hope. Atomise is perhaps his darkest and most hopeful album to date. It is certainly his most expansive and fully realised.

The Askew Sisters return with an album that very few other musicians could have made. ‘Enclosure’ is both intimate and universal, steeped in history of place and society yet looking to the future, an album about captivity that revels in its own musical freedom.

It is a rare album that can make traditional music sound truly modern, but The Drystones have managed it here. Apparitions is the kind of album that could change the very meaning of contemporary folk music.

On Stick In The Wheel’s second ‘From Here’ compilation well-known interpreters of traditional song rub shoulders with experimental folkies while Brit-folk royalty has a place at the table alongside impassioned protest-singers.

Otterburn is still recognisably – and brilliantly – part of Neilson’s impressive and growing catalogue of work, but these are songs hacked out of the rock of grief and raw emotion, and they are something quite special.

Travelling Bright is not an album of instant, frivolous gratification. Its songs are long and often complex…But the more you engage with music the more rewarding it can be, and Travelling Bright might just be one of the most rewarding albums you’ll hear all year.

Yet another fine addition to the River Lea record label – Irish folk music is in a very healthy state at the moment and with The Hare’s Lament, Ye Vagabonds have emerged as its most accomplished exponents.