Albums

Before dropping his 100th album, Ashley Hutchings releases Ninety-nine Impressions, a spoken-word album with musical accompaniment from the likes of Blair Dunlop, Jacob Stoney and more. It’s an exceptional album and quite unlike anything he’s ever released before.

Listening to the sharply directed words and empathetic sentiments on this unassumingly lovely album, there is little doubt that Murray McLauchlan is already wide awake, and his hourglass keeps perfect timing.

Their most accessible album yet, The Little Unsaid’s “Lick The Future’s Lips” is an album of variegated musical moods and songs that peer into the gloom but also spark a flicker of light in the potential to change both the world and ourselves.

On David Kitt’s “20”, he has lovingly rerecorded a score of his favourite songs. As demonstrated throughout, Kitt is a master of his craft and while this is essentially a career retrospective, it is a stunning musical document in its own right.

The line-up on ‘I Am of Ireland’, reads like a who’s who of the mainly Irish but also Irish American and British folk music world. There’s plenty of enjoyable music here and if it guides you back to Yeats’ poetry, well, that’s a worthwhile bonus.

What makes Willing so special is the way Lady Nade refuses to take the obvious steps – she also sings beautifully and has a band that understands exactly what she needs and they deliver 100%.

In the Half-Light is a brief but assured, deeply enticing snapshot from Joshua Burnside and Laura Quirke of how their two talents intermingle to form a single cohesive vision. Hopefully, this is a prelude to further collaboration…one to be eagerly anticipated.

Dean Owens and his various collaborators have explored a variety of ideas, moods and sounds within the overall desert-Americana landscape, building eager anticipation for what the full album project will eventually encompass. It’s been a captivating journey.

On One (and Driftless) Left Vessel has found a way to mine two seams simultaneously, providing us with a literate worldview, while melding much of the album within a natural framework that has never been realized before.

Trevor Sensor has been to the edge, he’s peered over and decided that despite all the evidence to the contrary there are still reasons to live. On Account of Exile, Vol. 1 doesn’t offer us a lot of…it’s enough that he finds them for himself.

Candlepower is an effortlessly crafted, and luxurious, listen. Charming and challenging in equal measures it is a thoroughly beguiling debut from Marina Allen who is also our Artist of the Month.

That Dana Sipos’s ‘The Astral Plane’ feels remarkably intimate and accessible is a tribute to her ability to translate a world of experiences in a way that helps us to understand how we are all connected; examining those bonds makes us all stronger.