It has become something of a cliché to speak of folk music as a genre that unites the past with the present. This could conceivably distract listeners from recognising Laura Cannell as, first and foremost, a contemporary composer, performer and improviser.
Although here she is channelling drones from medieval times on cello and bass recorder, it is the ‘nowness’ of her music that makes it so singular and absorbing.
Recorded in single takes, she describes the process as one of “Playing and forgetting, letting passages re-emerge through broken sequences, fading thoughts, memories and repeated motifs.”
The instrumental textures of the eight short pieces on this record feel solid and earth-bound while suggesting airier moods in which the sacred merges with the secular.
Evocative titles like The Toil of Day is Ebbing and A Soar of Eagles Surround Us give a flavour of sounds inspired by a combination of humdrum reality and uplifting escape.
