“Sometimes my view is always imbued with melancholy hue,” sings Josienne Clarke in the opening song here, Silverline. That’s something of an understatement, for this is an elegant concept album that explores different shades of misery. The folk scene is suddenly awash with duos, but Clarke and Walker stand out due to their originality; she has a fine, cool vocal style and plays recorder, flute and saxophone, while he is an excellent guitarist and banjo player who also arranged the orchestral settings. The traditional material here includes the warning Let No Man Steal Your Thyme, but the album is notable for Clarke’s thoughtful and gloomy songwriting. The Tangled Tree is a pained, drifting study of passing time and loss, the more upbeat, brass-backed I Never Learned French is about regret, while Earth & Ash & Dust is her darkest song about time and death. Bleak but impressive.
