My Music in 2015 - Albums - Part 2

Here we are again, just over a week after my first foray on this subject. The rules are the same as in Part 1. I hope you find something to like or to argue about.
Critical comments are quite as welcome as positive ones just so long they are not offensive or defamatory. A fact is that a credited post always has more gravitas than an anonymous one and that applies even if the content of both were to be exactly the same. I reserve the right to publish comments on this post and will credit them accordingly.

• Ange Hardy - Esteesee
• Chantel McGregor - Lose Control
• Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
• Fara - Fara
• Girlpool - Before The World Was Big
• Heather Crosse - Groovin' At The Crosse Roads
• Mad Dog McRea - Almost Home
• Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin - Watershed
• The Rosellys - The Barn Sessions
• Stick In The Wheel - From Here

Part 1 was equally divided between acts from the UK and from North America and that only occurred to me after I posted it. This selection is much more UK biased, featuring just two acts from North America and an Australian. Specifically this one...

Courtney Barnett, Far Out Stage, Green Man Festival - Sunday evening, 23 August 2015.

Girlpool, Big Top stage, End Of The Road Festival - Saturday 5 September 2015.

Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin, Marnhull Acoustic Sessions - Sunday 23 February 2014.

The Rosellys, Saloon Stage, Truck Festival - Friday 18 July 2015.

Fara, Stage 2, Cambridge Folk Festival - Thursday 30 July 2015.

You may be wondering why I often use links to my earlier comments in these lists; this is because they often contain more back-links to the artist, as well as to other related topics. It saves listing multiple links all over again.

New Music 2015 - Part 71 - Ange Hardy - Esteesee

This is the first of a pair that I prefigured here earlier this week. It is my first response to a variety of informal discussions, at festivals and elsewhere, about an apparent division in modern UK folk music.
I'm not going to make judgements for I will take as much time as is needed to assess both sides of the coin. This is not fence-sitting, for I like both for their respective virtues.
There are two fairly distinct kinds of tradition, in interpretation, and this represents one of them.

The title, pronounced as written, refers specifically to Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 -1834).

This comprises new music on the theme of old words. In that sense it is the academic side of modern folk and I suspect that there are some that would say that this is not what folk music should be about. I beg to differ about that.
The nub of this lies with a conundrum that is at the heart of contemporary folk and one to which I have no answer and believe there is none to be found: does it reflect and seek solace in the values of the current time with regard to times past or attempt the mirror image of that situation, or indeed both?

It is without doubt a very fine album indeed. 

Thinking ahead... Folk Festivals 2014

I've only just got back home, from something completely different, and now I am listening to Mike Harding Folk Show Number 43. You can also find it, and all the previous editions, on Mixcloud here but I recommend consulting the former for it also has a plethora of links to all the acts/artists ever featured and to listings of forthcoming live music events.
One more good piece of news is that Bristol Folk Festival is to return in 2014, after a hiatus in 2013, and at two new venues. Indeed venues that I believe are ones far better suited to it: 3 - 4 May 2014 at St. George's, Clifton, Bristol and Bristol Folk House.
To go with that theme, here is another 2013 album of which I was quite unaware of until today. Bare Foot Folk, the second album by Somerset-based Ange Hardy.

Amazon.co.uk only have it to download but the CD is available, signed if you wish, directly from the artist.

How one chooses to define 'folk' or 'roots' is open to endless debate but, any which way you chose, I doubt that I have ever listened to more of it than I have in 2013.