Based in the West Yorkshire cosmic mecca of * Todmordenknown for a different music scene than the wild ones; Bridget Hayden and the Apparitions Let’s start the year with traditional songs as heavy as they are released at midnight. They are inspired by their mother’s slumber and unfold at a glacial pace, with analog symphonies and delicate banjos accentuating Hayden’s deep, melodious voice. The style is especially noteworthy: slow, stony and heavy.
But sitting still can be a habit. During his time on the Black Side (best known from the versions of Anne Briggs, Sandy Denny and Bert Jansch), Hayden well reports the sleepy, post-coital delights of “best night” when I first saw him and “Irish boy”. “made” and play”. The images in the industrial revolution – the songs of the Factory Girls are also advocated with the power of languor, as the woman’s cheeks are “red like roses that bloom in spring”.
Hayden mentioned this amazing song before, in 2019’s Solo and Song. For much of his earlier work, even with the crackling rocks Vibracathedral Orchestra and into the experimental Folklore Tapes title, much discordant and rude. The air in Cold Breath can feel the rain against the same, so he is happy when he sometimes dances his way.
Hayden’s planes provide a unique, memmerizing counterpoint to the Appalachian Blue Red Chair ride. As she sings away from the mic on When I Was My First, the sense of space in Todfellows Hall – the local community space where it was recorded – evokes a palpable chill. Sam McLoughlin’s deep harmonies swirl and Dan Bridgewood-Hill’s life-long swing notes add a still eerie shadow to this winter album.
Cold Breaths Rain is released on January 10
Even from this month
Mary Chapin Carpenter, Julius Fowlis and Karine Polwart‘s Looking at the Thread (Thirty Tigers) it’s a soulful collaboration of uplifting country, Irish songs such as the stunning Gràdh Geal Mo Chridhe (The bright love of my heart) and brilliant originals (Polwart and Pippa Murphy You know where you’re beautiful). The second album was released under the name Parchman Prison, Another Sunday Morning Mississippi (Glitterbeat) Tinariwen producer Ian Brennan in memory of the folk and the blues in prison Sunday gospel. Po’Plis and Open the Waterfalls of the Sky (Let It Rain) are especially powerful, laid out like a thunderstorm outside. Weft by Blue lake (Unio Tonal), the moniker of artist and musician Jason Dungan, is an instrumental musical balm, four tracks of nylon-string guitar, piano, flute and clarinet and a sparkling three-minute finale on the 36-string guitar.