Another proof on how to not fall prey to the dreaded sophomore album curse. Laura Marling says she speaks because she can and we believe her all the way. This, her next after her brilliant debut, proves once and for all that she is here to stay and furthermore that she has made an album for the ages.

It's quite incredible the songwriting maturity she displays in each and every song of this follow-up, with a noticeable improvement both on the lyrics and arrangements department. It's a self-assured artist we hear now and the pathos invested in some of the songs give it gravitas and resonance in a way seldom heard. And if you think I'm going loco with the superlatives, just pick up a copy of this album and give it a try. You'd be hard pressed not to concur with me.

Listen to Darkness Descends, a quite up-beat song albeit its misleading title.

The french have somehow always managed to produce some of the most enduring and original pop albums that I can remember. I don't know how they do it. Guess they have it in their blood. And when on top of this, they channel their longstanding love of all things Americana, we have something like the album I have here for you today: Emily Loizeau's Pays Sauvage.

Sung both in french and in english, it's almost like hearing the songs a young french female pioneer composed when she first entered american shores and got in touch with "God's Country" very own soul and musical wavelengths. The feeling of the whole album is therefore very "live" and it sometimes feel like you've crashed a barn party and somehow instantly fell in love with it. The songs have a rhythm and a groove that completely permeates any room or space that you listen to. Yes, it's a winner on all fronts and I'm hooked.

Here's one of its more mellow moments: Songes [Dreams]. Take care.

I'm not trying to provoke any cosmic backlash unto me but the fact is that today is Equinox and here I am talking about a record by Oberon called Midsummer Night's Dream.

I just found it by simple hazard (I prefer to call it serendipity) and fell in love with it. It's extremely rare (I think only 150 original copies were made!) and it features some of the loveliest folk sounds you'll likely to hear in quite some time. For seasoned folk lovers, maybe you won't find here nothing new but in my opinion, it has that one ingredient that separates it from most of what you've heard so far: magic.

I especially like the treatment they made to one of Debussy's classic pieces: Syrinx. I could hear it ad eternum and imagine myself daydreaming in a meadow somewhere. Maybe I just will.

Now, here's a duo to look out for in the future. Sweden's songbirds FIRST AID KIT have just released this, their debut album - The Big Black & The Blue - and are already causing ripple waves across the music community.

Moving effortlessly between folk with a strong leaning on american traditionals and the roots of celtic musical sensibilities, they have managed to put together a collection of songs that is sure to melt even the most stern of critics. At times it's quite baffling how such tender age can produce songs of such maturity and emotional investment. And herein lies most of their appeal. Oh, and those harmonies are to die for. Rarely have I heard two voices that go so well together.

I leave you with Waltz for Richard, one of the many magical moments to be found in what I hope to be the first of a long discography. I see you soon.

A quite recent discovery for me (in fact, I just found out about this album yesterday!) but one that I had to share with all of you as soon as I could because this is really worth your while.

Kathe Green can be no more than a mere footnote in the history of popular culture from the 60's but let's just say it's one footnote worth reading and finding out more about her. Actress, model, singer, songwriter, this is what Rev-Ola has to say about her having rescued her debut album from obscurity:

Finding herself in London as guest and bosom buddy of Richard Harris, himself enjoying a spin-off career as a hugely successful pop star at the time, Kathe found herself singing Mark Lester's vocal parts on Where Is Love? for the soon-to-be-massive Oliver soundtrack. She was snapped up by Deram where she was teamed up with in-house whiz-kid producer Wayne Bickerton, arranger supreme John Cameron and the cream of London session players. Kathe wrote 10 of the album's 13 tracks, which recall all manner of contemporary female vocalists of the time, from Marianne Faithfull to Sandie Shaw to Dana Gillespie (with whom Kathe shared Bickerton'sproduction savvy, not to mention a couple of his tunes). She also turns in a lump-to-the-throat reading of Cameron's perennial If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind.

The selling point for me was the album cover, a sort of Alice in Wonderland gone wrong which I find very suitable for the songs that comprise it. Oh, and the title is also very evocative of the mood permeating the whole album (Run the Length of Your Wildness, a piece of poetry bestowed on her by Richard Harris himself). Here is one of its more delicate moments: Why? (The Child's Song). Enjoy it.

I'd like to start the month with a great recommendation which was also a great discovery for me when I first heard about this album and this band in particular. The band in question is called A Banda do Casaco, which roughly translates to The Band of the Coat or The Coat Band. They're from Portugal, my home country and it's not everyday that I sing our praises but when they're due, they're overdue.

This - Dos Benefícios dum Vendido no Reino dos Bonifácios - their debut album, is one of the finest ever recorded and produced around here and they seemed to manage what few bands have: to be truthful to portuguese musical roots and capture the sound of their era at the same time. Beautifully sung and played throughout, this is one of those albums that keeps you coming back to them many times over to discover layer upon layer of new sounds and words that you just didn't listen to the last time you played it. A keeper then.

I'm going to leave you with one of my favorite tracks at the moment: A Cavalo Dado (A Given Horse). Have a great month of March, everyone. I know I will because right now I'm on vacation! See you around.

Anne Briggs is quite the outsider in the folk revival movement of the early 70's. A wild spirit, or so it seems, she regarded the business of performing and recording as almost incidental and not all important per se.

Mistress of a singular voice, somewhere between the lament of a child and the weeping of a young virgin (don't mind me, I've been reading very strange things, lately), she somehow managed to put out enough material to influence the next generation of folk singers. Her first album was mostly an accapella affair, with Briggs' voice as the centerpiece. This track here than you can listen to below - Standing On The Shore - is taken from her sophomore album, The Time Has Come, and on this album you can already sense in a much deeper way that she was a non-conformist and someone that almost shied away from publicity and the whole music business altogether. Apparently, she never cared much for the money she could get from performing gigs.

I tell you, they don't make them like this anymore.

I've been wanting to talk about Vashti Bunyan for a while now and the recent entry about Judee Sill gave me the perfect opportunity for it. So here it is.

What is it with me and artists with minute discographies? Here we are again, faced with a very interesting female singer/songwriter that has only put out two records in her lifetime. And the second one more than 35 years apart! Well, at least it's a great thing that her talents did not go unnoticed by the following generations of aural lovers. Championed by the new breed of New Folk artists, Bunyan has enjoyed a later life recognition that has only done wonders to her reputation as one of the most original and mysterious artists of her generation.

Her classic debut, Just Another Diamond Day, is worthy of belonging to any discerning music lover's collection, so pure is her voice and so exquisite the arrangements by Robert Kirby (of Nick Drake fame) are. But in this post, I wanted to call your attention to her sophomore album, the enigmatically named Lookaftering, a record every bit as haunting and original as her debut. I leave you with the track Against the Sky. Sit back and enjoy.

This post is dedicated to one of our readers who called my attention to this very special lady's wonderful music.

I guess you can say that Judee Sill is the tragic american counterpart to Britain's Shelagh McDonald. Both released only two albums in their lifetime, both dabbled dangerously with drugs, both were extremely promising singer/songwriters in their own right, both ended their careers due to poor support from the part of their record companies who didn't believe enough in them and both are now revered, respected and reappraised and their music has suffered a long overdue reassessment that will never do them enough justice.

For me, what really stands apart Sill's music from McDonald's is that she was able to create a niche for her right from the start and the way she fuses folk with classic and rock is so effortless, it leaves you quite disarmed. On top of that, the deeply felt and often times spiritual/religious lyrics she infuses the songs with are the stuff only great dreamers are capable of. She really believed in salvation and redemption in the hollistic sense of those words and her music truly benefits from this aspect of her songwriting. For proof, I leave you with one of her most pure moments in song ever: The Kiss.

Such are things. I thought the next album I was going to write about was Nancy Sinatra's classic Boots but that was not to be. Buffy Sainte-Marie's wild spirit paid me a visit and forced me to listen to her again. Such are things.

Fire & Fleet & Candlelight is one hell of an eclectic album. Folk, pop, traditional, jazz, it's all here and all sung in her inimitable voice. I clearly remember the first time I heard her: it was at a short film festival, of all places, and Summer Boy, one of her finest compositions, was playing in the soundtrack of one such short feature. I immediately fell in love with it and anxiously waited for the end credits to start rolling so that I could check the name of the song and its singer. After that, I went looking for her and quickly noticed that she was as elusive as her muse seems to be.

Of native american origin, she has always been a fighter for their rights in her own way. She truly is a wild spirit and her music is a testimony of that characteristic. For some an acquired taste. For me, a great artist all around. Listen to Summer Boy and see what you find:

I guess you can view this compilation by Numero Group label as a companion piece to another one I blogged about a few weeks back called Bearded Ladies. That one was about obscure british folk singers whilst this one is more of the same but with an american flavour to it.

It is not a coincidence that this compilation is called Wayfaring Strangers: Ladies from the Canyon. Both the first and the second parts of the title refer to two Joni Mitchell compositions, the big shadow behind all striving female folk singers in the 70s. Joni did mark her territory back then and there were very few artists that managed to share a spotlight with her. These days, the only contemporary female artist that Mitchell confesses to have been influenced by is Laura Nyro, another incredible performer and songwriter the likes of which we have seldom seen since her glory days. But back to the album.

It's most likely that you won't recognize any name on Ladies from the Canyon. But it's also most likely that you'll find yourself searching for more of them by the end of the album. In this sense, it's a complete success. And in my case, I think I definitely want to hear more of Collie Ryan. Like this track here: Starbright (Song of Silence).

Probably my favorite Kate Bush album ever. And considering she made some truly amazing ones in a career that practically any recording artist would have wished for themselves, this is saying a lot.

Some might argue that Hounds of Love or even the more recent Aerial are much more inventive, original and better produced but when push comes to shove, this remains my favorite. The main reasons are clear and simple: I still am completely head over wheels about its title track, The Sensual World, a song that has accompanied me after first hearing it many, many moons ago. And that's just what this is: a nocturnal record, filled to the brim with enchantment, paganism, myth, folklore and secret feelings. Production-wise, this record can be seen as a very intricate tapestry that was woven thread by delicate thread with knowing hands until the final result was delivered almost as a gift to us, the listener.

Of course, there is one or two tracks that I could almost live without but overall, it's a wondrous record and probably the one that gets mentioned the least when her career is discussed. So, here it is and I hope I made you go out and listen to it with different ears and mind. Meanwhile, here's the title track in all its bewitching glory:

Model, actress, part-time folk singer, icon, heroin addict. So reads the life of Christa Päffgen, better known to the public as Nico.

Déjà vu? Yes, the first part of this review is quite similar to the one below about Zouzou. What is it about models and drugs, right? Still, if you hanged around The Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol like Nico did in the 60's, I guess that wasn't so strange as it at first may seem. Not at all, really. But let's talk about the music instead.

Chelsea Girl was her debut album and it's a keeper. Filled with wonderful songs, mostly covers and a few originals, the main ingredient of this folky affair (the songs all are acoustic guitar-based) is her voice. And what a peculiar voice. Hitting very low notes for a woman singer and sounding quite detached, as if in a world of her own creation, this particular magic is woven with quite unique materials that still manage to beguile and bemuse to this day.

These Days is one of her most easily recognizable songs and the one that made people alert to her when it was prominently featured in a classic scene of Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums. You never forget it. Just like Nico.

And so we come to the end of the first month of existence of this blog. It's been a fun ride for me so far and I have noticed I have already made some friends along the way. Hope they stick around for the rest of the journey.

The end really is the beginning and I have decided to talk about an album that marked the official recording debut of an amazing artist: Joni Mitchell. I have been listening to her for years and years now and never seem to get tired. She has introduced me to a whole new way of looking at music and how it should be made and that has stayed with me ever since I first bought this, her first album. This was actually the first CD of hers that I acquired even though her discography offered a very wide selection to choose from. But when I decided to explore her musical cannon, I opted to go there in a chronological way. Needless to say, the journey was wild and wonderful, with each new album offering new musical palettes and new songwriting perspectives.

SONG TO A SEAGULL or JONI MITCHELL, as it's also known, it's one I always find myself going back to from time to time. Maybe it's to revisit that first impression of inocence. I leave you with Night in the City. Take care.

A very recent discovery that I did while looking for some french ye-ye albums that I still hadn't heard. Canada's Margo Guryan's TAKE A PICTURE was her only official output (seems I have a thing for artists that only put out one or two albums in their recording careers) and it's a beauty. It's the kind of record you put on those lazy Sunday mornings and let it wash over you with all its unabashed sunshine glory. If you like breezy songs, charmingly arranged and with that extra retro pop sound to it, this is the perfect record for you.

At times it almost feels like you're listening to a lost Claudine Longet album because Guryan's vocals are strikingly similar to Longet's in that breathy, whispering way we've grown so familiar with. It really is 60's french pop sung in english. Apparently, Guryan didn't care too much about pop songs (she is classically trained) but after hearing The Beach Boy's wondrous GOD ONLY KNOWS included in their legendary PET SOUNDS album, she never looked back. Can't really blame her, can you? While you're still here, have a listen to Sunday Morning.

Golden-voiced, fair-looking, talented, Shelagh McDonald was one of Britain's brightest upcoming stars with a sure-fire career ahead of her. And then she vanished.

Compared to both Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake, she had a lot to live up to and she had the talent to do so. With only two officially recorded albums to remember her, it's mind-boggling to think the heights she would reach if she hadn't abandoned the music business altogether. Apparently, after a big alucinogenic journey caused by heavy drugs, she lost her way. Literally. Her parents had to rescue her back to Ireland and no more was heard of her. A crying shame.

Still, her catalogue remains an obligatory (re)discovery and perhaps her somewhat tragic fate is the main ingredient of her lasting charm. Here's to you, Shelagh. Listen to Stargazer, one of her best compositions.

Compilations are a tricky thing. Some complain that they're always hit and miss affairs, whilst others like me embrace them for the chance of getting to know artists you normally wouldn't come across by.

BEARDED LADIES is such a compilation: with highs and lows but always interesting to listen to. Put together by Jane Weaver (she also features on one track) at the behest of indie label Finders Keepers Records, it's a female-singers-only record that tries to find a kind of ethereal quality both in the styles and voices of these acoustically based songs. Perfect for rainy nights like this one I'm having over here. Let Susan Christie sing you about a Rainy Day.