It’s that time of year again where we look back and share with you some of the favourite folk music albums featured here on Folk Radio UK over the past year. I’ve limited this year’s selection to 105 albums. This approach has involved a lot of whittling down of the 450 odd reviews we’ve featured over the past year which hasn’t been an easy task as 2015 was an exceptional year for music.
The list does not run in any order of merit. Part 2 will follow soon.
The Best Folk Music Albums of 2015
Anna & Elizabeth – Anna & Elizabeth
For a record steeped so long in the history of mountain music, Anna And Elizabeth is unexpectedly and endlessly varied. This is a rare album that is as intimate as it is ambitious and as idiosyncratic as it is reverential.
Review Link | Buy
Clype – Clype
With roots in Aberdeen and the unusual combination of piano and fiddle, Clype have released a stunning debut album of politically engaged songs, with a unique sound drawing from folk and jazz.
Review Link | Buy
Alasdair Roberts – Alasdair Roberts
Alasdair has produced an album that conjures, through its own uniquely relaxed, quiet and inclusive intimacy, an earthly and worldly – and yet almost unearthly and otherworldly – magic, of a very special kind.
Review Link | Buy
Darren Hayman – Florence
The ability to turn a stream of mundane details into something inexplicably heartbreaking, with little but a softly strummed guitar as an accompaniment. This is Hayman’s gift – the ability to elevate the quotidian to heights that are almost sacred.
Review Link | Buy
Inge Thomson – Da Fishing Hands
Da Fishing Hands is a resounding creative success on a number of levels. Inge Thomson and her collaborators have painted a vivid picture of a changed and changing community. It’s as much an important historical document as it is a powerful artistic statement and, above all, a mesmerisingly beautiful record with top class musicians including Sarah Hayes, Fraser Fifield, Steven Polwart and Graeme Smillie.
Review Link | Short Film | Buy
Marry Waterson & David A. Jaycock – Two Wolves
Two Wolves is a superb album, one of the year’s best, with each of its songs brimming with nuance and depth. Although covering some deeply personal subjects, Marry’s skills as a singer, lyricist and, above all, a story-teller bring a very human touch, enabling the songs to maintain their focus and intensity without overwhelming the listener.
Review Link | Buy
Emily Portman – Coracle
There’s no doubt that Emily Portman has, with a little help from her friends, created and curated a dazzling display of writing and musicianship, but the real success of Coracle lies in the balancing of many seemingly disparate aspects to create an intensely luminous collection of songs whose articulate lyrics, virtuoso performances and intricate arrangements never overshadow the very real humanity which is at the heart of it all.
Review Link | Buy
Lau – The Bell That Never Rang
Constant innovators and superb musicians, Lau invited Joan As Police Woman to produce the new album The Bell That Never Rang. It charts bold new frontiers. Is it the best Lau album yet? There’s absolutely no doubt about it!
Review Link | Buy
Ryley Walker – Primrose Green
Ryley Walker writes songs that reach deep, and sings them from the depth of his own soul. On Primrose Green he plays guitar like he was born clutching a fret board and has never let go. Driven to perform and hungry for an outlet, he delivers bursts of nostalgia, strongly spiced with passages (not moments) of true genius, through contemporary media and with utter sincerity.
Review Link | Buy
Sam Lee and Friends – The Fade in Time
Sam Lee’s follow-up album ‘The Fade in Time’ is an impassioned album of hugely ambitious scope; a historical document that at the same time belongs firmly in the 21st century.
Review Link | Buy
Simpson∙Cutting∙Kerr – Murmurs
Even halfway through 2015 we’d already seen a number of astonishingly high quality records from many quarters; even so, Murmurs stood head and shoulders against much of this extraordinarily stiff competition. By anybody’s standards it’s a top-notch album by three of our best musicians and, if there’s any justice in this world, will soon find its way into the collections of all self-respecting fans of folk music.
Review Link | Buy
Rita Hosking – Frankie and the No Go Road
Rita Hosking’s latest album ‘Frankie and the No Go Road’ is a remarkable concept album steeped in Native American wisdom. We said it was sure to be in the year’s best of lists, and it is!
Review Link | Buy
Robert Chaney – Cracked Picture Frames
With a talent partly forged in Florida and fuelled by French cinema’s New Wave Robert Chaney’s Cracked Picture Frames marks the arrival of a notable new voice on the London music scene. The album is sharp, intelligent, thoughtful and moving, as Robert sings, “I got some simple words to say,” but he says them so well, you can’t fail to be mightily impressed.
Review Link | Buy
The Rheingans Sisters – Already Home
On Already Home the Rheingans Sisters not only showcase their diverse repertoire and refined skills but also demonstrate an ability to incorporate threatened or obscure musical forms into their own evolving style making this not only a beautiful and exceptional record but an important one.
Review Link | Buy
The Unthanks – Mount the Air
Two years in the making and recorded in their own new studio set up, Mount The Air encapsulates all of the contradictions that make The Unthanks so beautifully thrilling.
Review Link | Buy
The Weather Station – Loyalty
Loyalty is an album full of wonderful, enigmatic murkiness, an album that should earn The Weather Station a place at the top table of Canadian songwriters. From the start her songwriting is assured and the musicianship – aided by Afie Jurvanen of Bahamas and Feist collaborator Robbie Lackritz – creates just the right balance of iciness and warmth.
Review Link | Buy
The Woodbine & Ivyband – Sleep On Sleeping On
Sleep On Sleeping On saw the welcome return of The Woodbine & Ivy Band. Whilst tempting to call this album one of the most exciting and inventive folk albums of recent times it should be celebrated for what it is: a brimming cauldron of musical ideas with a surprisingly coherent end product.
Review Link | Buy
Trembling Bells – The Sovereign Self
Trembling Bells’ vivid cacophony rules benignly, combining volume, substance and intoxicating, druggy lyrical beauty in a darkly satisfying, curiously celebratory and often epic aural challenge. Don’t expect an easy ride, and don’t for a moment think of compromise – instead give this literally-stunning music your full attention, and stick it on repeat.
Review Link | Buy
Stick in the Wheel – From Here
London folk group ‘Stick in the Wheel’ have combined the influences of skiffle, punk, and folk in their debut album ‘From here’. This is high-energy, politically switched-on folk music and it is one of the most vital recent additions to the English musical tradition.
Review Link | Buy
This Is The Kit – Bashed Out
This Is The Kit was back with a new album – Bashed Out. She was joined by her regulars as well as collaborators including both Desnner and his brother, Bryce, Beirut’s Benjamin Lanz and Matt Barrick from The Walkmen. The quality of the music and her craft are unmistakable.
Review Link | Buy
Sarah Hayes – Woven
What impresses most about ‘Woven’ is Sarah’s skill as an arranger; an interpreter of song, story and music. In taking these snatches and fragments of traditional song, adding her own intricate and fascinating musical themes and merging them into a narrative on the fleeting but complex nature of human existence, she has created an utterly compelling tapestry.
Review Link | Buy
Skipper’s Alley – Skipper’s Alley
In their 2 years together Skipper’s Alley have already built a presence on the international Celtic festival scene and this debut album can only enhance and widen that reputation.
Review Link | Buy
Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman – Tomorrow Will Follow Today
Out of the circuit for almost a decade, Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman have hit a rich vein of form since their return and Tomorrow Will Follow Today finds the duo at their best.
Review Link | Buy
Kathryn Williams – Hypoxia
Theming an album around a book as intense as The Bell Jar was never going to be an easy task but to her credit, Kathryn Williams has brought great sensitivity and empathy to her writing of the nine songs on Hypoxia. The result is a fine collection of contemporary folk songs which can be enjoyed at face value but which, on deeper listening, reveal an intelligent and thoughtful reevaluation of one of modern literature’s greatest novels.
Review Link | Buy
More Soon
