Namer of Clouds

The debut album of young Somerset singer Kitty Macfarlane features striking original songs alongside two traditional Somerset pieces from the archive of folklorist and collector Ruth Tongue. Macfarlane's musical collaborators include cellist Graham Coe, melodeon player Archie Churchill-Moss and Jamie Francis on electric guitar. Josh Clark's violin and cello add sweeping textures to the likes of stand-out track ‘Namer of Clouds’ about 19th-century pharmacist Luke Howard, who gave us our cloud classifications. Another delve into history comes up with ‘Sea Silk’, which makes Biblical references to the magic weave of Jason's fleece and King Solomon's robes, fashioned from byssus, the filaments of giant clams. This weaving craft, from the ancient Mediterranean world, is kept alive today by a Sardinian woman, Chiara Vigo, and Macfarlane travelled to Sardinia to meet her and write this song, which features recordings of Vigo speaking. Further in, the haunting ‘Morgan's Pantry’, about the mythical ‘sea morgans’ of the Bristol channel, is underlayed by recordings of a waterfall that is only seen at low tide, and which in folklore is regarded as a gateway to the morgans' other world. With her excellent vocals and fine instrumentation, this is an arresting and absorbing debut.