Albums

Crescent, the second offering from Speaker Face, is an album of pure class, indisputable elegance, compositional invention and, above all, rich emotional rewards.

Nan Shepherd’s writing has found a perfect musical equivalent in Sturgeon’s stunning new album…a work of rare beauty: to hear The Living Mountain is to hear the song of the Cairngorms.

With ‘Sowing Acorns’, Emma Langford has delivered a mature, assured and eminently listenable album, frothing with melodic charm and lyrical intrigue.

Taken as a whole, La Locura De Machuca amounts to another astounding entry in the Analog Africa catalogue. The artistic statements rendered here are joyous, enticing and a boon for the soul.

It’s a clever musician who can weave such a human image through sparse improvised playing, but Samuels is clearly one such player and this small, cohesive and unassuming album contains multitudes of such touches.

Ewan MacPherson’s ‘Norther’ is a curious and utterly beguiling beast. Released in 2008, it’s a self-assured and impressively produced debut that takes you back to the roots revival of the mid-2000s.

Tired of the same old? Then Gap In The Fence from Scotland’s Tom Houston will bring refreshingly welcome rays of musical sunshine into your life.

Kris Drever’s ‘Where The World Is Thin’ is a charming album. Confident and mature in its content, and beautifully performed. A fine treat as the nights draw in.

The Magpie Arc’s debut EP is a varied and brilliantly executed set of songs from a truly gifted group of musicians and bodes extremely well for what is to follow.

Martin Green goes well beyond the boundaries of traditional music with The Portal, a multifaceted artwork that is as original as anything that has come out of this strange year.

A timely album as we attempt to struggle through a year many of us would rather forget, Kris Delmhorst reminds us of the things that we need to carry with us.

Looking Up is Mike McClure’s tenth solo album and one that arrives after five years during which there have been dramatic changes in his life.