Mary Chapin Carpenter, Julie Fowlis, Karine Polwart 
Looking For The Thread 
(Thirty Tigers) 
★★★

CONCEIVED and written in Scotland and recorded at Real World Studios near Bath, Looking For The Thread is an enchanting album from three top musicians — US singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter and Scottish folk artists Julie Fowlis and Karine Polwart. 

A Heart That Never Closes is classic Carpenter, a mid-tempo tune full of affecting, philosophical lines. Elsewhere, Polwart contributes Rebecca, a tribute to a 100-year-old beech tree in West Lothian, and Hold Everything, inspired by John Berger’s 2008 book Hold Everything Dear: Dispatches On Survival and Resistance. 

With Josh Kaufman in the producer’s chair, there is a cohesive folky-acoustic sound, with Carpenter’s songs adding a country flavour too. But it’s their three striking voices that really stand out, from Fowlis’s searching Scottish accent on salmon story Silver In The Blue and Carpenter’s somewhat whispered delivery on Satellites.

The Weather Station 
Humanhood 
(Fat Possum) 
★★★★ 

SINCE their 2017 self-titled album, Canadian band The Weather Station — the musical baby of Tamara Linderman — have had a meteoric rise, with 2021’s Ignorance topping several best album of the year lists. 

Unsurprisingly, then, there is a lot of buzz about Humanhood. Like her recent records, the climate crisis and climate grief is cited as the backdrop to the set, along with even newer concerns such as Artificial Intelligence.  

Linderman is clearly a very talented songwriter and performer. Working with her band she creates sonically adventurous, intricate, and often jazzy soundscapes. Neon Signs is a fantastic propulsive opener, while Irreversible Damage’s recorded conversation and saxophone is a deadringer for Cassandra Jenkins, another young musician on the up.  

For me the songs themselves aren’t quite top drawer, but I realise I’m very much in a minority on this one. 

Sam Amidon 
Salt River 
(River Lea) 
★★★

HAVING released music since the early 2000s, Vermont native Sam Amidon now lives in London with his wife, Beth Orton.  

He specialises in reinterpreting old folk songs, along with writing some of his own tunes too. Employing a deadpan vocal delivery, he is a potent live performer, or at least was when I saw him at Union Chapel circa 2011. 

Produced by man of the moment Sam Gendel and recorded in Los Angeles, Amidon’s new album ranges far and wide, from the gloomy I’m On My Journey, a New England folk song dating from the 1700s, to a cover of Yoko Ono’s nursery rhyme Ask The Elephant. Tavern, a traditional American fiddle tune that morphs into a jazzy end section, is a real highlight. 

It’s an interesting set, though feels a little unfocussed compared to Amidon’s previous work.