Albums

The musical collaboration of Tanya Brittain and Sam Kelly digs ever deeper into the culture, heritage and traditions of Cornwall – a fresh and compelling display of creative symbiosis, suffused with a wild beauty and offering tantalising insights into the proud heart and soul of this ancient Celtic nation.

Shadows succeeds through the striking humanity of its songs, and by their originality. It’s an album that will hopefully see its creators heralded as one of the most vital – and indeed one of the most experimental – acts on the folk circuit and beyond.

Day two of WOMAD 2016 and the sun is out with more musical magic to brighten our day still further from the likes of Asiq Nargile, Amaraterra, The Grit Orchestra and Blick Bassy.

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.