that’s all folk

It might be something about the time of year and wanting to waft about fields in a floaty dress like a girl in a Flake advert, but my favourite folk albums are dominating my most played lists right now. I love British folk for its weird and wild aspects; the storytelling - the green men, creatures crawling from the sea, the dead walking, women transformed to swans, babies swapped for sour milk - and the feeling of having a direct link to something very very old. Here’s my pick of the bunch:

Anne Briggs – ‘A Collection’
Anne Briggs has one of the most beautiful voices, very clear and very haunting. On these songs she’s mostly unaccompanied, which makes the most of her style. This album also contains my favourite version of ‘Reynardine,’ a traditional song about a young girl being seduced by a were-fox. I own five versions of ‘Reynardine,’ so that’s quite a compliment.

Pentangle – ‘Early Classics’To be blunt this is Pentangle before they went rubbish. This album sounds both very Medieval and very 1960s, especially when it comes to the sitar solo on ‘Once I Had A Sweetheart.’ ‘Pentangling’s’ lazy groove makes it one of my favourites here.

Bellowhead - ‘Burlesque’ Bellowhead’s John Spiers and Jon Boden are two of the leading lights in the current Brit-Folk revival. Their songs swing with speed and random instrumentation and they’re not afraid of the nasty side of things, dead maidens abound. I suppose you might say Bellowhead are Beirut playing a Renaissance Fair – it’s up to you if you think that’s a good thing. I do.

Shirley Collins – ‘The Power Of The True Love Knot’This album only arrived on eMusic this week. Shirley Collins has the power to present quite disturbing songs in an innocent and pretty fashion, which makes them more eerie. Take ‘The Unquiet Grave’ – superficially Collins’ version sounds like a sweet love lament, but is actually about a woman grieving for her dead lover; grieving so hard that the corpse can’t rest in peace. When she asks for a kiss, the dead man tells her he can’t as his breath “comes earthy cold” and she’ll die. Not so pretty now.