Christina Alden and Alex Patterson
Safe Travels
(Self-Released) 
★★★★★

FOUR years on from their debut album Hunter, Christina Alden and Alex Patterson’s second album is an exploration of themes of home, family and connection to the natural world. Composed entirely of original tracks, this is a most welcome release.

Work on the album started in 2022 towards the end of lockdown and before the birth of their daughter Etta, to whom homage is paid in Etta’s Song. Family connections are also explored in Our House with memories of Alden’s mother playing folk music in the kitchen.

The title track is a plea for safe passage for travelling and migration, and songs like The Mountain Hare and The Old Weather Station look at the effects of climate change on nature and wildlife. Winter Song is an ode to the passing of the seasons which, with sounds of birdsong, rain and wind throughout, can be said to sum up the album as a whole.

Odette Michell
Queen of the Lowlands
(Talking Elephant Records)
★★★★★

SINCE the release of her debut album The Wildest Rose in 2019, Odette Michell has been active on the folk scene mainly as part of the trio Michell, Pfeiffer and Kulesh. This second solo album is composed entirely of new self-penned songs but with traditional folk themes involving the sea and historical narrative.

The title track tells the story of a Dutch passenger ship converted into a troop ship in WWI, while the poignant Waterline tells of the more recent destruction of a once thriving fishing community on Lancashire’s Flyde coast.

Requiem is inspired by the short life of the writer Robert Louis Stevenson, while Lady Constance pays tribute to the revolutionary Anglo-Irish aristocrat Constance Markievicz who died penniless due to her activism.

Accompanied by guest artists including Ninebarrow and Phil Beer, this album uses contemporary songs to carry on folk music’s best storytelling traditions.

Clementine Lovell
Westbound
(Self-Released)
★★★★★

A CHILDHOOD divided between the apple orchards of Herefordshire and the rugged coast of West Cork seems to have inspired this debut album from Clementine Lovell, with stories of ordinary people and their struggles.

With a voice that has been compared to Joan Baez and Emmylou Harris, and influences from her parents’ record collection which include Sandy Denny and Jacqui McShee, this album is a promising start. Opening with her interpretation of the traditional song The Cuckoo, we then have her own song Land Army Girl telling the story of her maternal grandparents and how they overcame family opposition to marry.

Feelings about the loss of her mother are explored in Sister and Time to Let You Go, and the end title track was written after driving through a storm to spend time with her father. But the album is also affirmation that life has happy times as well.