Albums

Organic and intimate in feel, Abigail Lapell’s “Stolen Time” is an emotionally potent offering and one that’s sure to lead to a significant and well-deserved international breakthrough.

Patrick Watson never ceases to amaze, and his new album, Better in the Shade surprises again and again. The album engages by disengaging from the world we know, using parts we tend to rely on as stepping stones to a deeper understanding.

Garrett Heath’s previous album, Kingdom Come, effortlessly earned a place among my top 10 albums of  2021, and the follow-up, The Losing End, presents a convincing case for making that a double.

Topette’s ‘Bourdon’ is another album of delectably intoxicating grooves. The special blend of instrumental timbres, which when joyously carried aloft in the signature vigorously driven yet expertly controlled playing style, makes for a band sound that is literally unique.

Ana Silvera has an uncanny ability to combine discomfort with beauty, strangeness with simplicity. The Fabulist – whose very title casts her as an Angela Carter-like teller of curious stories – is the perfect distillation of these ambiguities. A mesmerising and magical album.

Ultimately you have to be true to who you are and be your own person, and Sadie Gustafson-Zook’s “Sin of Certainty” dances on dreamy melodies and her pure soaring voice, her truth is beautiful and beguiling. Lean in and listen.

Steeped in sorrow, loss, heartache and misery it may be, but Lynne Hanson’s knowing way with a tongue-in-cheek lyric and a melody line that hooks you in, Icecream in November is also an absolute joy to wallow in, she’s hip like Cohen indeed.

Graeme Armstrong’s debut album ‘You Are Free’, stands out as an adventurous and honest expression of one musician’s thoughts and feelings, as they relate to both his own life and to the great bedrock of folk music that he is building upon.

Norwegian record label Hubro is dedicated to jazz and folk-based music that is immersive, improvisational, and uncompromising. Benedicte Maurseth ticks all those boxes, and Hárr swells with a quiet beauty and bites with a keen experimental edge.

Bryony Griffith & Alice Jones’ “A year too late and a month too soon’ is traditional folk music at its most beguiling. An immersive album on which the songs are centre stage, performed by two of Yorkshire’s finest, delivered with absolute conviction and palpable charm.

After a two year hiatus, Karl Culley makes a welcome return with his cathartic Redshift. The EP precedes a full-length album planned for release later this year.

Rupert Wates returns to his roots in English folk music for his latest album which he says is “a love song to humanity”, the music “of the people, by the people, for the people”. Power to the people, indeed.