Cold Blows the Rain

This is a good period for ethereal and weird folk and traditional music, with acts like Milkweed seeing their idiosyncratic mini-albums gaining traction. West Yorkshire-based Bridget Hayden’s music is also keen to challenge the tropes of traditional music and focus on the fuzzy side, as anyone who has listened to her catalogue, particularly works like Soil and Song, will know. For Cold Blows the Rain, Hayden has drafted in Sam Mcloughlin and Dan Bridgewood-Hill on harmonium and violin respectively, to deliver a mist-soaked album of traditional songs, set to these two instruments, plus her delicately plucked banjo. It took me a little while to take to this sound, as it doesn’t deviate much from its parts across the eight tracks, but then I found myself quite mesmerised, as the songs weaved their subtle magic. All of the pieces are artfully considered, but the eight-minute ‘The Unquiet Grave’ is particularly beautiful.