Louise Jordan
Album: TEMPVS
Label: Azania
Tracks: 9
Website: www.louisejordan.co.uk

Listening to the songs they both sound quintessentially English in feel. At times I was reminded of the likes of Shirley Collins, but with a different character to the sound, almost like two people who live at different ends of the village and have the same friends, but they describe them in a different way. Similar, but in no way the same.

Equally if Anne Briggs had been born in Hampshire, rather than Nottinghamshire, then there's a good chance that she may well have sounded like Louise Jordan, such is their mutual ability to interpret song.

There's almost a palladian feel to the songs. "World Weary" sounds as if it could have been collected in the West Country, by the likes of Cecil Sharp and adapted to her voice rather than falling off her pen. It leads me to wonder how long it will be before someone adds the words traditional to it and cites, I learnt this traditional song of the internet when debuting the song at their local folk club.

From that last paragraph you can deduce that Louise Jordan isn't just good at other people's songs, she's a more than capable writer, easily capable of holding her own against many of the names from the folk revival.

I've been fortunate enough to catch Louise perform live and there is much of the passion of her sense of performance captured in these tracks. I've also heard Louise perform live in radio sessions to a single mic, where you can hear real belief in her music

This is folk music, not just as a living tradition, but with a sound that captures the essence of the song as much as the words do. This is real revival of folk revival and it's absolutely glorious.

I also owe Louise an apology the album gets its official release on October 22nd and I've been spending so much time playing and enjoying the album I hadn't got around to reviewing it before now

Neil King