Albums

Kristin McClement has created a debut album of gravitas and maturity which should secure her reputation as a songwriter and musician of depth and character.

The Iron and Wine Archive Series Volume No. 1 offers previously unreleased stripped back bare bones recordings. These early-day songs make them a must for any fan of Sam Beam.

Energetic and joyous, tranquil and reflective, ‘Music in Exile’ looks set to be one of the most well-balanced and optimistic records you’re likely to hear this year.

Sam Lee’s follow-up album ‘The Fade in Time’ is an impassioned album of hugely ambitious scope; a historical document that at the same time belongs firmly in the 21st century.

Canadian Michael Feuerstack is a one man music industry and The Forgettable Truth is the latest poetic bulletin in an extraordinary career and a record to harmonise head and heart.

To say the album is accomplished would belittle the talent on show and the consistency of Steve Ashley’s output over five decades. ‘This Little Game’ may just be one of his best.

James McMurtry’s latest offering ‘Complicated Game’ is unflinching in its storytelling, delivered with unembellished honesty and deep empathy, it may well prove one of the finest Americana albums of the year.

A one room, one microphone recording with no overdubs by John Parish, the music on Tom Brosseau’s Perfect Abandon is redolent of dust bowl ballads or early Sun sides…stripped of embellishment to reinforce the songs.

Out of the circuit for almost a decade, Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman have hit a rich vein of form since their return and Tomorrow Will Follow Today finds the duo at their best.

The atmosphere on the latest release from The Phantom Band is darker and moodier than their previous offering, evoking a twilit landscape haunted by isolation.

Linking two outstanding talents in Jim Moray and Sam Carter, with Sam Nadel, Tom Moore, Nick Cooke and Jon Thorne, False Lights took Folk East 2014 by storm. Salvor is the reason why.

Arooj Aftab’s debut album ‘Bird Under Water’ is a transcendent and an essential listen, this is indeed the sound of the oneness of being.