Eliza Carthy's solo debut followed a collaboration with Nancy Kerr and an album with her band, The Kings Of Calicutt. The latter remained on the shelf until after the 1996 release of HEAT LIGHT & SOUND. All the featured tunes are English, something that doubtless pleased her parents Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson, as both were champions of the genre at a time when it was overshadowed by Celtic music. This delightful set, which is entirely traditional save for one tentative original, includes a jaunty tale of deception, "Cold, Wet & Rainy Night", and a fine version of "10,000 Miles" appended by a morris jig. Other highlights are remarkably assured deliveries of two of the great Child ballads, "Sheath & Knife" and "Clark Saunders", the latter sung unaccompanied.

Burgess was a kind of Jascha Heifetz of the Scots pipes, a child prodigy who by 15 had won the Gold Medal for pibroch -- the heart of ceol moir, the esoteric classical music of the Scots pipes. This extremely welcome CD, drawn from Burgess's first two '70s LPs for Topic Records, contains superb examples of both ceol moir and the rich heritage of reels, strathspeys and other dance forms. ~ John Storm Roberts, Original Music

Waterson:Carthy is the parent/daughter/daughter team of Norma Waterson, Martin Carthy, and Eliza Carthy. Their eponymous first album was released to much acclaim in 1994. With the exception of one song apiece from Robert Burns and Ron Kavana (the latter providing words to the Texas waltz "Midnight on the Water"), and a tune from Eliza, the material is traditional. Eliza sings "The Grey Cock" unaccompanied; elsewhere accompaniment is provided by Martin on guitar or mandolin, Eliza on fiddle, and guests Nancy Kerr and Jock Tydesley also on fiddle. Norma is most memorable on the melodic "When First I Came to Caledonia." She takes lead on "Midnight on the Water," with the remainder of the family joining on the choruses and three fiddles carrying the tune. "Ye Mariners All," featuring Martin's vocal and Eliza on fiddle, conjures up memories of the great Carthy/Swarbrick partnership. All three voices combine to glorious effect on "Sleep on Beloved," an earlier variant of the song more widely known via Joseph Spence and the Incredible String band as "I Bid You Good Night." All in all, this is a splendid first recording by an excellent live act.

Track Listings
Side: 1
1 : Further Down The Line
2 : The Poetic Clown
3 : A Secret Hidden Message
4 : Poor Poor Surgeon Tim
5 : The Kindness Of Ravens
6 : Softly Spoken Bill
7 : Pounding For Peace
Side: 2
1 : The Lost Bastard Son Of War
2 : The Expressionist Tell #1
3 : The Expressionist Tell #2
4 : I Am The Messenger
5 : The Eternal Black Darkness Of My Death
6 : The Darkling Fields Of Stowborough
7 : Listen In The Twilight Breeze
8 : Corpse 564

Track Listings
1 : Giving Up
2 : Used to Be Lonely
3 : Before I Know It
4 : Song for Ty
5 : Valleys (My Love)
6 : Rhododendron
7 : My Life Alone
8 : Day & Night
9 : Friend of Mine
10 : Forever Turned Around

Forever Turned Around came together over several sessions across the country. Though Julien Ehrlich is Whitney's lead singing drummer while Max Kakacek is the lead guitarist, when writing, both transcend their roles to piece together each offering lyrically and compositionally. "The way it ends up working is one of us comes up with a basic idea for a song and the other person serves as the foil to complicate that idea. We ask, 'What can we change to make it more interesting?'" says Kakacek. Challenging each other is the core of their songwriting partnership. It's these risks and experiments that make Forever Turned Around a triumph. Take opener "Giving Up," which started from a stream-of-conscious revelation when Ehrlich improvised the chorus while Kakacek played Wurlitzer. What began as a nod to Neil Young's Live at Massey Hall 1971 in an afternoon turned into a heart-rending and relatable song about the ups and downs of long-term relationships. Over twinkling piano, Ehrlich sings, "Though we started losing touch / I've been hanging on because / You're the only one I love." He explains, "In a relationship, you don't stay at the same level at all times. You go through weeks where you're closed off." After a session with producers Bradley Cook (Hand Habits, Hiss Golden Messenger) and Jonathan Rado (Weyes Blood, Father John Misty) helped color in the arrangements, the album truly revealed itself when they reunited with original rhythm guitarist Ziyad Asrar in his basement Chicago studio-the same place where they hashed out much of their critically acclaimed 2016 debut, Light Upon The Lake. "Getting down there was so important because we've always used that basement for music. The comfort and familiarity mattered but having Ziyad be a buffer between us was so helpful," says Ehrlich. With Asrar, songs like "Song For Ty" and "Forever Turned Around" effortlessly came together. Restlessness is at the heart of Whitney's resonant and stunning sophomore album Forever Turned Around. As Ehrlich and Kakacek realized life can change almost instantly. Priorities shift, relationships evolve, home can become far away, and even when luck momentarily works out, there's still that underlying search for something better. Happiness can be fleeting but this album proves that even when it feels like time is turning on it's head and there's either a moment of clarity or crippling doubt, there's still beauty in figuring it all out.

Having supported the likes of Lana Del Rey, Lewis Capaldi, Birdy and KT Tunstall, Lockett's debut album `Abington Grove' is a decade in the making. Named after the street he grew up on and following his father's death, the album was written in the cellar of their old house involving love, addiction, self-doubt or euphoria; achieving a collection of incredibly powerful pop songs spanning piano ballads, electro-tinged masterpieces, and every emotive idiosyncrasy in between.