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With Midnight Milk, Adam Holmes demonstrates his willingness to mine the rich creativity behind his work and bring to the surface previously unimagined gems. Adam Holmes and the Embers have created an album that digs deep into the soul and finds it a place of calm comfort.

With Dead Man’s Dance (Dawns y Gŵr Marw) ALAW have not only created an impressive follow up to their 2013 debut, they’ve surpassed the brilliance of Melody with an even more invigorating, wider-ranging exploration of Welsh poetic and musical traditions. It is an inspired and unique album.

Karine Polwart’s music and poetry, with Pippa Murphy’s exquisite settings, haven’t replicated the theatre production; it has brought Wind Resistance to a wider audience, furnished it with portability. Beautiful, potent, and engaging; A Pocket of Wind Resistance gives Karine Polwart’s enthralling theatrical début a satisfying permanence.

Bob Delyn a’r Ebillion return with their first album in fourteen years. Twm Morys and his band offer melodic inventiveness and lyrical panache on Dal i ‘Redig Dipyn Bach which summons images of the slate and moss of the Welsh landscape and lays bare the Welsh psyche. It is an impressive and moving piece of songwriting, in any language.

With his fourth studio album The Water Of Leith released this month, Blue Rose Code continues to draw on his increasingly inventive ability, as he quietly weaves flavours from a range of musical influences and personal experience, to produce his most thoroughly absorbing album to date.

Megan Henwood’s emerging maturity as a songwriter and performer resonates throughout the twelve songs on River on which a fascinating soundscape accentuates her consistently tight and skilful writing and singing.

With Gigspanner, Peter Knight has assembled one of the most quietly brilliant sets of musicians in the folk world and beyond. The WIfe Of Urban Law is both experimental and accessible; it is music that respects the past without being in thrall to it. And more importantly, it is a record of stunning and sustained beauty. 

Eight years after the first of Jon Boden’s dystopian albums was released comes Afterglow, an urban tapestry of sound and stories that leaves one impatient for the final chapter. Here he discusses the albums’ conceptions, folk sociology and the art of leaving space.

Edgelarks is an album that is full of muted, autumnal beauty. Edgelarks may signify a new venture for Hannah Martin and Phillip Henry, but the quality of their songwriting and performing only continues to improve, this is their best yet.

Pretty Peggy firmly adds Sam Kelly & The Lost Boys to the list of artists who are proving that great party bands are no longer the exclusive domain of the Scottish & Irish music scenes. Pretty Peggy is easily one of the best albums to come from the ever-growing world of youthful folk music.

Afterglow is a full, large scale and grand piece of work that is as intelligent as it is entertaining, and it confirms Jon Boden as one of the most interesting and exciting British singers and arrangers currently working.

Strength and courage is what ‘Strangers’ is all about. Despite the hardships it describes, there is barely a moment on this album that doesn’t hum with positivity. The Young’uns have perfected a sound that is as unique as it is uplifting, and it would be no surprise if their already burgeoning popularity were to rise to even greater heights.

Gathering is Josh Ritter’s best collection so far of fractured and fearful characters who are battling the elements and their own inner demons. The album itself is a roller coaster of emotion with Ritter mining a rich seam of Americana music.

Gwyneth Glyn’s ‘Tro’ is less an album and more a journey: to the quiet, longed-for corners of Wales, but also across the world, taking in West Africa and the Asian subcontinent. And it is an inward journey, an exploration of love and its many meanings and guises. As a whole, it is a poetic and deeply moving experience.

Bone On Bone is a powerful declaration from a mature observer of human nature. It’s gutsy and incisive with Bruce Cockburn delving into his musical roots and his personal concerns and ladled with beaucoups of blues and folk.  On the strength of this, he well deserves his induction into The Canadian Songwriters Hall Of Fame.

Every new Martin Simpson album is one to look forward to, but Trails and Tribulations feels like a biggie, even by the Sheffield string-master’s standards. We listened in as he explained the light and shade running through the set, the importance of nature and the timing of the songs.

Unfinished Business isn’t a title that hints at unfulfilled musical ambitions. Rather, it confirms that, on turning 70, Paul Brady still has plenty more to offer. Everything about Unfinished Business tells us that he is likely to remain, for some time yet, at the very peak of his powers.

Folk Hotel is ultimately another reason to celebrate Tom Russell and his ongoing quest to keep alive the culture and traditions of American dreamers. The album is an excellent collection of songs played in his inimitable style and a fine tribute to his heroes.