Thomas Blake

Often tribute albums can be overly reverent or lacking in musical coherence. Remembering Mountains successfully avoids both of these pitfalls. In fact, the only disappointing thing about these songs is that we will never get to hear Karen Dalton singing them herself.

For a record steeped so long in the history of mountain music, Anna And Elizabeth is unexpectedly and endlessly varied. This is a rare album that is as intimate as it is ambitious and as idiosyncratic as it is reverential.

Against expectations Chatterbox is one of the freshest and in its quiet way one of the most spectacular albums I have heard this year. Ranging from incantatory to reflective, it is always subtle, vital, and feminine in the most elementary sense of the word. Bartosik and James look to have created an entirely new platform for the accordion, but more importantly the have created a beautiful set of recordings.

The latest offering from Telling the Bees sees them performing with an expanded line-up and what is a record full of constant, impressive surprises. Its striking cover art is once more the work of Rima Staines, whose eerie, timeless, pagan flourishes give some hint as to the musical content.

Loyalty is an album full of wonderful, enigmatic murkiness, an album that should earn The Weather Station a place at the top table of Canadian songwriters. From the start her songwriting is assured and the musicianship – aided by Afie Jurvanen of Bahamas and Feist collaborator Robbie Lackritz – creates just the right balance of iciness and warmth.

This tribute provides a space in which some of the musicians who rightly look up to Molina’s work can express their gratitude to him and to his family. It also gives fans another perspective on the music of one of the best and most quietly influential songwriters to have ever tried his hand at the game. Jason Molina may never have known it, but he is not alone.

Sleep On Sleeping On sees the welcome return of The Woodbine & Ivy Band. Whilst tempting to call this album one of the most exciting and inventive folk albums of recent times it should be celebrated for what it is: a brimming cauldron of musical ideas with a surprisingly coherent end product.

Cove Hithe’s debut offering occupies a beguiling hinterland: the unclaimed areas between sea and land, modernity and ancientness, waking and dreaming.

Heed the Thunder’s new album, ‘Cokaigne’ exemplifies the taut strangeness and the endless flow of musical ideas that can be found all over this varied and impressive little album.

Songs for the Voiceless is both a beautifully realised piece of art and a timely lesson in history featuring Jon Boden, Bella Hardy, The Young’Uns and more.

The latest offering from United Bible Studies comes via ‘A Year in the Country’. It’s an album that’s inseparable from its landscapes, full of natural grandeur and musical inventiveness.

Kristina Jung’s latest EP has an eerie appeal all of its own that, rather than being explained by geography, is simply the result of a wonderful voice and some timeless songwriting.