Folk Round-Up (Astrid Williamson, Eve Goodman, and Thorpe & Morrison)

Shetland-born, Brighton-based singer Astrid Williamson’s Shetland Suite (Incarnation Records ^HHH) stems from the period following her mother’s death, when in mourning she recorded ‘Da Selkie Wife’s Sang’. There are layers of glistening, brooding ambient voices and synths in the background, while her strong voice foregrounds and brings out the songs, all sung in Shetland dialect, and all stemming back to her childhood. The layered vocals on tracks like ‘Unst Boat Song’ are glorious, as are the layer of sonic effects applied to her voice on the Selkie song that brought the project to life.

On the title-track of Welsh singer Eve Goodman’s Summer Sun, Winter Trees (Eve Goodman Records ^HHH), her low, rich voice flows like deep water, the sentiment and feel evoking the melancholy poetry of Nick Drake, with a strong set of lyrics and catchy melodies. This is her debut, and her lyrics and voice make for an arresting combination, as on the emotive sense of loss and connection on ‘That Day’. Many of the tracks are solo guitar and vocals, but ‘Alive’ gathers a woozy electric guitar and a loose percussive beat around itself, and goes deep.

Open the Door for Three are fiddle player Liz Knowles, uilleann piper Kieran O’Hare and Dublin-born singer and bouzouki player Pat Broaders, and A Prosperous Gale (Open the Door for Three ^HHH), its title drawn from a line in the song ‘William Glen’, is a set of new arrangements to age-old tunes and new tune sets. “Being a bearer of this Irish musical tradition is like swimming in an ocean of music,” O’Hare has said. From opener, ‘The Fairy Jig Set’, through to ‘The Mermaid of Mullaghmore’, you’re in the midst of crack session playing and players, with the Clare song ‘Farewell, Lovely Mary’ and new tune, ‘The Lizzies’, being highlights.

Thorpe & Morrison are a fiddle/guitar duo from Birmingham with an Anglo-Scots-Irish repertoire of tunes and songs, and Grass & Granite (Thorpe & Morrison ^HHH) is their second studio set. As well as a range of traditional tunes including a set of Danish Wedding Marches, and a Hebridean-Scandi mash-up in ‘Causeway Joy / The Oyster Wives Rant / Ales Engelska’, there are original new tunes, an arresting, poetic cover of The Pogues’ ‘Rainy Night in Soho’ and a guest vocal from Michelle Holloway on ‘Sovay’, a 19th-century ballad in which a woman dressed as a highwayman tests her lover’s devotion. Get the album to find out what happens…

Accordionist and small pipes player Mairearad Green & harpist Rachel Newton are cousins, their roots in the northwest Highlands, and their first album together, Anna Bhàn (Shadowside Records ^HHHH), is named after their great-great-great-grandmother, and focuses on her role in the women-led Coigach resistance during the Highland Clearances of the 1850s. It’s a richly layered suite, a lyrical music redolent of landscape and history, with spoken word and poetry as well as songs in Gaelic and English and a musical palette of pipes, accordion, harp, piano and viola. Green’s artworks in the CD booklet are also excellent.