The Beautiful & the Actual

This debut from the Wiltshire folk singer reveals something of a folk trend towards strong female singer-songwriters with illuminating and well-researched stories to tell. The Beautiful & the Actual bears comparison to fellow Wiltshire folk singer Louise Jordan's No Petticoats Here. Like that album, it's a close historical study of a time and place from a unique perspective and, like Jordan, Hood offers a song about Dorothy Lawrence, the brave woman who disguised herself as a man in order to enlist in World War I.

Yet the real focus of Hood's debut is the folk song collector Alfred Williams, who lived in a neighbouring Wiltshire village to her own and collected hundreds of songs in the early 20th century, of which eight feature here. Three others are self-penned and well observed, from the ancient tale of a Malmesbury monk who attempted flight to a contemporary reflection on refugees at sea. This last is echoed by ‘The Hills of Kandahar’, written by John Archibold about the Afghan war.

The Beautiful & the Actual is a highly respectful and musically sensitive folk recording that also exhibits a strong female perspective, as evinced on the reinterpretation of ‘William Taylor’ as ‘William's Sweetheart’, which shifts focus to the girl who was left behind.