Albums

Sea Song Sessions is a glorious album, showcasing some of the best of the current crop of British folk artists – Jon Boden, Seth Lakeman, Ben Nicholls, Emily Portman, Jack Rutter – delivering some of the best music you’re likely to hear this year.

Featuring co-writes with Kathryn Williams, David Ford, and the novelist Laura Barnett, Polly Paulusma’s latest offering, The Pivot On Which The World Turns, is the work of a master songsmith. 

With ‘The Sorrow Songs’, Angeline Morrison set out to retell the stories of historic British Black ancestors through song. In this she has succeeded; those stories are now there for future generations to be retold & remembered. A gift and landmark folk album.

Elijah McLaughlin and his band of Joel Styzens and Jason Toth follow their 2020 debut with a multi-faceted and highly creative set. Elijah McLaughlin Ensemble II is a highly charged, fascinating and dynamic album.

On Ranagri’s ‘Tradition ii’, the songs are packed with passages in which voices and instruments combine to astound the listener with some of the most attention-grabbing music I’ve heard in a long time.

Siobhan Miller’s fifth album ‘Bloom’ has an immediacy and energy beyond her previous offerings. If she can continue to harness the spark and spontaneity in evidence here, I’ll remain a convert. A prized bloom indeed.

Crazy Town is another solid album offering from Beth Nielsen Chapman; read our album review and watch the video for her country hymnal ‘Walk You To Heaven’, a collaboration with Kimmie Rhodes and Mindy Smith.

While in the blinding light of day, Marian van der Zon’s debut album ‘Still Rising’ is ‘simply’ a collection of highly listenable folk songs created in a rural Vancouver Island community; in terms of a triumph of the human spirit, it is an extraordinary achievement.

Rozi Plain holds an intimate gig in the Blue Basement, hidden below Soho’s Third Man Records store to celebrate the announcement of her forthcoming album Prize…Lila Tristram was there to soak it all up.

Opening the set with ‘Lilac Wine’ is a bold move…But Lisa O’Neill has the poise and range to use this as a vehicle to lock in the audience’s attention, and it’s a grip that does not loosen for the next ninety minutes.

Erlend Apneseth’s Nova never shies away from the exploratory spirit that has defined his career. It is an album of colour and contrast, of human intimacy and wild natural grandeur.

Unquenching Fire is a rare delight that doesn’t rely exclusively on reworking the usual traditional chestnuts, but then SykesMartin are a rare delight indeed.