Ninebarrow
The Hour of the Blackbird
(Winding Track)
★★★★★

DORSET duo Ninebarrow (Jon Whitley and Jay LaBouchardiere) have an impressive record of five albums over the course of 12 years. This latest offering sees them join forces with Hampshire’s Hart Voices and Surrey’s Chantry Singers to give choral arrangements to songs from their back catalogue.

The 13 songs cover a range of themes expressing a love of nature and the outdoors. Summer Fires celebrates traditions of Midsummer Day and walks in the Lake District inspire The Sea told from the perspective of a Roman soldier yearning for home.

The theme of migration is explored in Under the Fence written by the duo after watching a documentary about a Calais refugee camp and we also have a jaunty version of the traditional Hey John Barleycorn.

Ending with another traditional Farewell Shanty the multiple backing voices make this a special Best Of retrospective album.

Amit Dattani
Wrong Kind of One
(Self-Released)
★★★★★

THIS second album by Amit Dattani, following his critically acclaimed debut Santiago, was recorded after the diagnosis of a degenerative nerve condition in 2018 affecting his guitar playing. However, with the support of friends and a custom-built guitar he was able to forge a way back to performing, and this album is a tribute to resilience in both physical and mental challenges.

The title track looks at the struggles faced by people trying to escape war and hardship and how they are subsequently treated, and this is followed, appropriately, by the traditional Make Me a Pallett on Your Floor with its joyful plea for hospitality.

Dattani deals with his own recent struggle and gratitude at finding a way to overcome this in Now I Can Play On, and we also have a version of Bob Dylan’s One Too Many Mornings. The best of Americana combined with hope and inspiration.

Lonan
Oddy Locks
(Self-Released)
★★★★★

LONAN are a young Leeds-based folk trio consisting of Evan Davies, Katy Ryder and Robin Timmis who came together through their shared love of instrumentals combined with narrative tales and socially conscious lyrics.

This six-track album starts with the title track, named after the band’s favourite part of the Leeds canal surrounded by old chimneys and factories, and the general theme of working-class communities devastated by post-industrialisation also features prominently in Maerdy (The Last Pit in the Rhondda).

Rothwell Debtor’s Prison tells the tale of an institution where people were locked up for poverty, and there is a fine rendition of the Scottish ballad The Shearing — a song I first heard sung by Frankie Armstrong — about a woman’s quiet defiance through a non-consensual encounter with a soldier.

Ending with Richard Thompson’s Beeswing, this is a short but very enjoyable album.