Uncut
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Unadorned – and quite exquisite – folk song.
It isn’t difficult to see why Fay Hield is the first new signing in 10 years to traditionalist independent Topic Records. A founder member of female a cappella quartet, The Witches of Elswick, Hield has traded their rumbustious performances for a more committed approach to an often obscure repertoire of traditional songs. Aided by Bellowhead’s Jon Boden and Sam Sweeney, their subtle accompaniment intensifies Hield’s elegant voice. There is something of June Tabor’s cool purity on ‘Little Yellow Roses’ or Maddy Prior’s ringing clarity on unaccompanied ‘The Shepherd’s Daughter’ which suggests Hield is a rare talent.
Mick Houghton
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Mojo
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The first new signing for a decade by the venerable Topic label inevitably focuses interest on this debut solo album by the Yorkshire singer formerly one quarter of the a cappella Witches of Elswick. There’s real depth and richness to her singing as she tackles a variety of challenging unusual traditional material from a slightly unhinged The Huntsman to an austere banks of the Nile (Bellowhead’s Sam Sweeney plays nyckelharpa!)
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The Guardian
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Topic Records is one of the great English independent labels, yet it has signed no new artists for a decade. Now, at last, the label has had a change of heart, releasing this solo album by Fay Hield, the partner of folk star Jon Boden and best known for her role with the four-piece a cappella group the Witches of Elswick. All of which raises a lot of expectations, but this is a good, rather than exceptional, set. Hield is a fine technical singer, though the best songs here are those featuring the subtle accompaniment of Boden on fiddle, concertina and guitar, and his Bellowhead colleague Sam Sweeney adding viola, fiddle or the traditional Swedish nyckelharpa. The songs vary from the cheerful Mad Family or Grey Goose and Gander, where Hield sounds at her most relaxed, through to the narrative ballads The Banks of the Nile or The Shepherd's Daughter, which she sings well but they don't yet sound like great story songs she has made her own.
Robin Denselow
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