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.