Album: Sam Lee, Ground of Its Own (The Nest Collective)

The first folk singer to teach at the Royal College Of Music, Sam Lee draws on material from Gypsy and traveller communities for this debut album, a slim portfolio of lust, betrayal and survival couched in allegory.

Lee's voice, oddly blithe and light for a baritone, captures the mythic charm of these songs, but it's his arrangements, at once vivid yet shrouded, which set Ground of Its Own apart. The banjo-driven "Ballad of George Collins" whisks along urgently, and the hare legend of "On Yonder Hill" occupies an enchantment of resonant metal drums and breathy trumpet.

Download:The Ballad Of George Collins; On Yonder Hill; Northlands

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