Namer of clouds

"Macfarlane first came to attention in 2010 when her Bus Song was featured on Radio 4's Excess Baggage. Since then her quest to conquer the BBC has seen her first EP (2016's Tide & Time) feature on 6 Music, while the year before that she was nominated for Radio 2's coveted Young Folk Award. But with Namer Of Clouds she has moved up another gear. One of the most striking elements of the album is its closeness to the natural world and to ancient processes ... Opener Starling Song for instance evokes the huge, million-strong murmurations that gather in mesmerising swirls above the Somerset Levels. Macfarlane's language is poetic, and her knack for an original and illuminating simile is strong: the river banks 'lie folded in pleats like the lines that the morning left pressed into your cheek,' and the birds' wingbeats are 'like the rush in a sea shell or a hum in the maize.' Images that are drawn from nature, and serve nature ... Macfarlane's pure voice, controlled yet wild, is a revelation, and the production and arrangement is masterful".

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"On her debut album Somerset singer-songwriter Kitty Macfarlane presents an occasionally dazzling set of songs that span traditional and contemporary folk, and includes a few numbers that might well deserve a spot among the English folk canon themselves ... Rarely has a debut collection been put together with such clarity and confidence, and such exciting promise for the records that might follow".

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