Folk Round-Up (Liz Overs, Reg Meuross, Will Finn & Rosie Calvert)

Ida Hedin & Johan Meidell are a duo crafting rich historical Swedish soundscapes with their blend of nyckelharpa and baroque violin. Prowinciale (Hedin & Meidell ★★★) recasts old tunes for new ears and brings a sense of the contemporary to the social dance tunes of 200 years ago. With roots in the early music world and the Swedish folk scene, these 12 pieces find the duo in beautiful sync. Step out of the present courtesy of their musical time machine.

Cosmetics retailer Lush has a wry approach to drawing the folk out of pop, rock and disco classics. Its latest vinyl set In the Bath (Cosmetic Warriors & Proper Music ★★★) goes all 90s, courtesy of folk’s bigger hitters – the likes of Jon Boden, Jackie Oates, Lisa Knapp and Eliza Carthy. It’s all good fun, and often more than that. Lady Maisery deliver a gleeful version of West Coast punks The Offspring’s ‘Have You Ever’, while Carthy covers Kirsty MacColl with grungy guitar and big drums on the ebullient fuck-you of ‘My Affair’. Martha Tilston is enticing on David Gray’s ‘Babylon’, and Jackie Oates surprises with some French house on Stardust’s ‘Music Sounds Better with You’. It’s a real hoot. Welcome back 90s, we missed you.

Nightjar (Liz Overs ★★★★) is Sussex folk singer Liz Overs’ debut, on which she’s joined by players including Ben Nicholls and Neill MacColl on a set that encompasses ballads such as ‘Cruel Sister’ and ‘Bramble Briar’ alongside originals like album single and opening track ‘Prayer to the Year’, that marks the Winter Solstice with poetic lyrics and Overs’ warm, breathy vocals over a backing of guitar, Marxophone and banjo. ‘Cruel Sister’ is sung with a voice of childlike innocence, making its dénouement much more powerful, while the closing title-track begins with fire rising to birdsong and then a vocal chorale to fill the air.

Will Finn & Rosie Calvert’s Fallow Alchemy (Will Finn & Rosie Calvert ★★★★) comes with an overarching concept of when to let things lie fallow and hibernate to allow new growth. The husband-and-wife duo have great chemistry as co-vocalists, with some strong harmonies and something of a classic folk-rock sound in between a capella pieces such as ‘The Trooper and the Maid’, the widespread traditional song ‘Daddy Fox’ and a brilliant bouncy version of ‘The Herring Song’. Animals of all kinds scuttle through the song list – ‘Leatherwing Bat’, Kipling’s ‘The Bee Boy’s Song’, ‘Squirrel is a Pretty Thing’ and ‘The Hornet and the Beetle’ among them.

Teesside-born, Somerset-based Reg Meuross’ new album, Fire & Dust (Hatsongs Records ★★★★), is the result of four years’ research into the life and music of Woody Guthrie, and is produced by The Who’s Pete Townshend, who plays on two tracks, and writes: “Reg’s terrific songs tell Woody’s life story with respect and affection, but also truth”. Guthrie remains a pertinent voice in our times, as he has been since the Dust Bowl Ballads through to inspiring a young Dylan (and through him to a whole generation of singers, including Meuross). Mixing narrative songs and covers of a few of Guthrie’s finest, it’s an excellently performed and conceived set.