Jim Ghedi & Toby Hay

There's an almost timeless, specifically British strain of pastoralism conjured on this second collaboration between acoustic guitarists Jim Ghedi (six-string) and Toby Hay (12-string). With nimble melodies and cascading arpeggios the pair evoke an idealised Albion, just as Pink Floyd did with ‘Grantchester Meadows’ and Virginia Astley so wistfully managed on From Gardens Where We Feel Secure. The heather-laden moorlands of Ghedi's home in God's Own Country are harnessed during the hammer-on hopscotch of ‘Bog Cotton Jig’, while ‘Swale Song’ ripples and undulates in sympathy with the river sharing its name. But Ghedi and Hay also look across the Atlantic for their inspiration, with welcome deviations into the finger-picking provinces of American primitivism. The doleful tumble permeating ‘Moss Flower’ recalls the earliest material Ben Chasny recorded under his Six Organs of Admittance alias, just as the influence of John Fahey and Robbie Basho impacts the raw improvised rush of ‘Skeleton Dance’ and sumptuous purling of quasi-raga ‘With the Morning Hills Behind You’, an understandably poignant piece written by Hay in memory of his late nan.