A frequent flyer on the folk circuit, where she plays with the Shee and the Furrow Collective among others, Rachel Newton has also cut a solo path over two albums that combine her harp and ethereal voice. Here’s My Heart brings a more exploratory approach to her choice of antique ballads (a couple in Gaelic). In brooding, cavernous atmospheres (the cover screams “dark and weird”), Newton’s harp and voice have a bright but spectral quality, not least on supernatural thrillers like Proud Maisrie and The Bloody Gardener. The material is mostly doomstruck – for relief there’s a setting of Walter Scott’s An Hour With Thee – but the playing and arrangements are sharp, and the album a beauty.
