Quick Sparrows Over the Black Earth

The interesting album title has been taken from one of the Greek poet Sappho's fragments. It suggests Cannell seeks in her music the speed and lightness of the birds in flight, and yet something rooted, deep. It signals, too, her preoccupation with the ancient. She worked for a decade in the innovative folk and early music duo Horses Brawl. Her first solo album draws on melodies from the fifth-century composer Mesrop Mashtots, Hildegard von Bingen, born in 1098, and Guillaume de Machaut, from the 14th century. She improvises around these on fiddle, overbowed fiddle (a deconstructed bow that can wrap around the instrument) and recorder. Inspired by medieval paintings depicting the practice, she plays two recorders at once.

The ten tracks were recorded in one take at St Andrew's Church in Raveningham, Norfolk. It's a suitable venue for these pieces – ‘Entrance to the Vault’, ‘Song of Repentance’ and ‘The Drowned Sacristan’ – in which long, droning chords roll on and on like the area's surrounding flat land. It is atmospheric, haunting even, but there is more of the black earth about this than of the quick sparrow.