Seasons of Change

Recorded in Staffordshire's 19th-century Danebridge Methodist Chapel with guest players including Norway's Marit Fält (Vamm) on Nordic mandola and cittern and Pilgrim's Way member Jude Rees on English border bagpipes, fiddler Tom Kitching's Seasons of Change comprises morris tunes, jigs, polkas and hornpipes, including one from hurdy-gurdy man Cliff Stapleton whose ‘Eglantine’ waltz Kitching describes as one of his busking favourites (Seasons of Change is also a book, reviewed on p67, charting Kitching's busking tour of England over a period of 18 months).

There's the stately rhythms of ‘Staines Morris’, one of the more famous among a clutch of morris tunes to be found here, and Kitching's playing throughout is outstanding – vigorous, rich, energetic, but nuanced, too. Eighteen months of solo playing in the (usually abandoned) shop doorways of Britain's declining municipalities ensures a very high level of performance, at least. While the book is a very different affair, drawing out the ashen-faced spirit of municipal austerity Britain, the album is full of life. And while the tunes flourish in whatever setting you put them in, the rest of us – audience and players, buskers and strollers – remain divided and separated at the whim of a virus we do not yet understand. Let's hope that will soon change.