Albums

Day one of WOMAD is as promising a start to a festival as we could hope for with a secret gig from This is the Kit and a powerhouse performance from Asian Dub Foundation.

Silver Skies Blue sees Judy Collins teaming up with Bronx-born singer- songwriter Ari Hest. ‘Strangers Again’ saw Collins receive some of best reviews and biggest sales in years; this should effortlessly add to the tally.

Trick Star is Annie Keating’s seventh album and a swift follow-up to last year’s Make Believing. She describes it as about being raised up, torn down and finding the way back home.

I don’t think any other band has achieved such a convincing and honest adaptation of ceilidh music. Their versatility shines through in the studio, but their hearts are on the dance floor – and it feels like their natural home.

A beautiful father and daughter album from Amanda Palmer and father Jack Palmer. Songs chosen by both of them from John Grant’s Glacier to Richard Thompson’s classic 1952 Vincent Black Lightning.

Justen Cimino is a Florida based guitarist who has been concentrating on producing instrumental music since around 2009. Dragon Tree is his third solo album and 1381 Records, his own label.

Undercurrent is a fine, thoughtful collection of songs, beautifully performed by Sarah Jarosz and her musical partners and showcasing a supremely gifted and still relatively unknown artist maturing into her prime.

Mathias Kom, along with his band The Burning Hell deliver an album that is easily their best to date. One that proves there is more to this anarchic, self-consciously verbose band than jokes. Public Library is an album of surprising emotional depth and musical variety.

For their latest album Dave McGraw and Mandy Fer literally go off-grid – holed up on a sparsely populated island in the San Juan archipelago. An intimate recording and ultimately a brave one as this pared down delight see-saws between delicate picking and grizzled fuzz.

The Amazing Devil are a new arrival on the alternative folk scene, built around the core duo of Irish-born actor-musician Joey Batey and Madeleine Hyland. Love Run is one of the year’s most exhilarating, exciting and visceral debuts, they deserve to be huge.

Eight years after their debut we are finally treated to a follow-up from Rusalnaia – Sharron Kraus and Gillian Chadwick… one of the most stunning albums I have heard all year, and one whose power remains long after the songs have faded.

Chicago born singer-songwriter Michael McDermott takes full advantage of a new clarity and focus to follow-up with his 10th solo album Willow Springs, his first in four years. It features some of his strongest material to date.