Ruby
Macy Gray
Keywords
Reviews (4)
The observer
d. 16. Sep. 2018
By
By
Neil Spencer
d. 16. Sep. 2018
"Intimacy with landscape is one of folk music's inspirations and attractions - recent examples include Seth Lakeman's passion for Devon and Alasdair Roberts's for the St Kilda archipelago. Kitty Macfarlane's home turf is Somerset, which is celebrated on this impressive debut. "Starling Song" captures the wonder of a murmuration above the Avalon marshes; "Man, Friendship" hymns the wildness of the same levels; while "Morgan's Pantry" warns of the capricious mermaids of the Bristol Channel. Macfarlane's vocal style is easy, tuneful and "in the tradition", as the saying goes, but what sets her work apart is her affinity with the natural world and some startlingly poetic lyrics".
Folk radio UK
d. 6. Sep. 2018
By
By
Thomas Blake
d. 6. Sep. 2018
"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".
For Folk's Sake
d. 19. Sep. 2018
By
By
Stephen Rötzsch Thomas
d. 19. Sep. 2018
"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".
fRoots
2018 Autumn
By
By
David Kidman
2018 Autumn
"An impressively mature record - and Kitty's still only barely into her mid-20s".