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Anaïs Mitchell’s self-titled latest album
New album: Beautiful, classic singer-songwriter sixth LP from the Vermont folk artist, best known for Broadway success with the 2010 album and musical Hadestown, these finely crafted low-key piano and guitar-led numbers compare favourably with 1970s Joni Mitchell or Aimee Mann
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New album: Beautifully smooth guitar picking and a warm, mellow voice mark out this glowingly lovely latest LP by the folk artist from Columbus, Georgia, in a collection of traditionals and originals with a theme of loss and renewal
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Ben McElroy: How I Learnt to Disengage from the Pack
New album: Sparse, haunting, lo-fi and truly beautiful and transcendent new LP by the Wirral-born Nottingham-based folk musician, featuring bright beautiful guitars, strange drones, field recordings and gorgeous fiddle playing
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Grace Cummings
New album: A truly outstanding voice and second album to match on this second LP by the Australian singer-songwriter and actress, her primal growl and guttural power combined with ethereal purity in this gorgeous folk release
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Decorated with one of his own paintings, Michael Hurley’s The Time of the Foxgloves
New album: Gorgeous new LP by the veteran 80-year-old American folk singer-songwriter, cartoonist and painter, whose first album was released in 1964, and this latest still employs his trusty, hissy four-track recorder, as well as duets with guest singers
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Starkly beautiful: The Crooked Carty Sings … with artwork by
New album: The Miraculous Mule frontman’s December solo album is a beautiful, tender, haunting, intimate, country and blues infused collection of “bastardised folk songs, murder ballads, traveller tunes and sea songs” variously with new lyrics and arrangements
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Favourite selection part 2.
Favourite albums of 2021 – Part 2: Welcome the second instalment, following Part 1, which can be found here. A huge number of excellent releases, of which again this is just a selection many of which were written during, and about lockdown, but also saw many outstanding voices emerge as well as innovative sounds developed
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Take your pick. Are your favourites here? Also check out Part 2 coming soon.
Favourite albums of 2021, part 1: Another difficult year for everyone, but from soul and jazz, electro-pop the experimental and avant-garde, an outstanding one for music releases, perhaps in part because out of diversity comes great art. Also feel free to explore Part 2, which is now available to view here.
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Mario Batkovic: taking the accordion to new places on Introspectio
New album: A mesmeric, magical fusion of boundary-pushing electronica, saxophone and organ by the Swiss virtuoso solo accordion player born in Bosnia now based in Bristol, with guests including saxophonist Colin Stetson
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Laura Cannell & Kate Ellis
Multiple release: Less an album more a uniquely special project of 12 monthly EP releases of beautiful, ghostly folk and experimental instrumentals, vocals and spoken stories by the violinist and cellist, with guests, capturing the changing seasons
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Sparsely beautiful: Will Varley’s The Hole Around My Head
New album: The English folk and alt-country singer-songwriter’s enthralling new LP is about ‘overcoming entropy, and the will of human beings to push on and create order and patterns in the madness and chaos of our existence’
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New perspective: Aeon Station’s Observatory
New album: Beautiful debut full LP by the solo moniker of The Wrens' Kevin Whelan with contributions from his band mates, these lockdown-inspired, highly emotive songs take the long view, filled with recriminations, guilt, but also hope for the future
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Blind Date Party album
New album: The brilliant veterans of darkly beautiful lo-fi and killer lyrics release a 2020-21 lockdown collaborative 19-song compilation of covers and reworked songs with just as many guests, including songs by Leonard Cohen, Yusuf Islam and Billie Eilish, as well as many Drag City labelmates
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Richard Dawson and Circle’s collaborative album Henki
New album: An entrancing, uplifting, brilliantly crafted and epic-feel mix of folk, prog and krautrock through tales of seeds, botany, history and myth by the Newcastle artist in collaboration with the Finnish metal band in a fabulous album unlike any other in 2021
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Raise the Roof continues the elevation of Plant and Krauss 2007 album Raising Sand
New album: Fourteen years after their award-winning album Raising Sand, the pair reunite with another very fine covers album, ably produced by T Bone Burnett, of blues, country, soul, but also now infusing English folk
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Snail Mail’s Valentine
New album: Second LP by Lindsey Jordan, following 2018’s debut, Lush, broadens her folk-indie-rock brush with a bigger range of sounds and synths, as well as heartbreak, exchanging some of her initial musical intimacy perhaps to reach a broader commercial appeal
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Marta Del Grandi’s debut album Until We Fossilize
New album: This delicate, beautiful debut by the Italian singer from Milan with a jazz background infuses her songs with folk and classical and eastern elements in an LP inspired by the Greek myth of Amethyst who defies the patriarchy
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Marissa Nadler
New album: This ninth album by the Boston-based American singer-songwriter is a beautiful selection of slow, acoustic numbers rich in stories about individuals and inspired by the long-running TV documentary series Unsolved Mysteries
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Mysterious beauty: Fun House by Hand Habits
New album: New York-born Los Angeles-based artist Meg Duffy returns with her own distinctive form of electro-pop and Americana folk with very refined, dreamily sung songs that build on her excellent single Aquamarine
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La Luz, self-titled, is the band’s fourth studio album
New album: LA’s Shana Cleveland and co return with a fourth, self-titled LP of wonderful, atmospheric numbers of gentle, surf-noir folk-psychedelia of tremendous melody, rich vocal harmony, and guitar and sitar-pedal sheen
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