Albums

Steve Tilston’s profile has been on the up and up with a great couple of recent albums, a Folk Award and now a film inspired by an unusual event in his life, but the real story is that his latest album, Truth To Tell, is yet another wonderful record from one of English folk music’s most accomplished songwriters.

The Florida based quartet ‘Have Gun, Will Travel’ release an album based on Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Aside from being a potted history of the Antarctic exploration, it’s also a pretty damn fine collection of tunes and one that deserves to see the band finding much wider exposure.

Known the world over as the lead voice of Oysterband, John Jones has combined his love of music and walking and, with the help of The Reluctant Ramblers, crafted his second solo album, the brilliant Never Stop Moving.

The Left Outsides have crafted an impressive synthesis of sound in The Shape Of Things To Come. Although the band wear their love of 1960s psychedelia/folk/pop/rock on their sleeve, they have a strong enough sense of self-identity to suggest that it will sound fresh for a long time to come.

Anna Laube’s self-titled third album offers a stylistically eclectic brew, part sugarcandy, part bourbon, sweet but with a real kick.

Iris Dement’s latest album ‘The Trackless Woods’ is inspired by the writings of Russian poet Anna Akhmatova…”some cultural enlightenment and enrichment and an album of the year all in one perfect package.”

Cape Snow is a cross-continental collaboration between Los Angeles-based singer Bree Scanlon and members of the long- running New England based band Tiger Saw. One to be swept away in, like giddy hearts.

At a time when individuality in society comes at a price…Little Arrow rail against mediocrity with an irresistibly fierce passion. The result is ‘Old Ink’, one of the most intoxicatingly original records you’re likely hear this year.

Departures is the debut release from London-based quintet Owl & Mouse, fronted by Brisbane singer-songwriter and ukulele player Hannah Botting.

Oddity, the debut album release from West Midlands based band Bethan and the Morgans shows great promise and the potential to strike on something demanding wider scale attention sooner rather than later.

Tender Gold and Gentle Blue is the latest offering from Red River Dialect, a band formed in Falmouth, Cornwall, in 2009. In the words of M.C. Taylor “Theirs is a focused longing, a confusion of soul, a visionary lamentation”.

Along with John Leventhal at the SummerTyne Americana Festival, Rosanne Cash demonstrated just how important the aural traditions inherent in folk and roots music still are to modern song writing. She can certainly count herself part of that ongoing continuum of music with its roots planted firmly in the soil of the American South.