English folk comes no more enchanted than Emily Portman’s delicately sung tales, in which nature, faerie and human sensibilities bleed seamlessly into one another. This collection of self-penned songs finds a lost loved one grafted into an apple tree, a “hill king” encountered in a neolithic cave, and babies abandoned in birds’ nests (motherhood, including postnatal blues, is a theme). Musically it’s Portman’s most refined work, with percussion, guitars and a chamber string section augmenting fiddle, harp and concertina, all spun into equilibrium by producer Andy Bell (of Ride and Oasis fame). Female voices in precise unison and poetic lyrics are at the album’s centre, however, and the spell they cast is both entrancing and unsettling. A marvellous, original work.
