Claire Rakich
Album: Salt On Your Door
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 9
Website: http://www.clairerakich.com

Originally from Guernsey (Channel Islands), though now living in London, Claire's a singer of traditional folk songs and a writer of contemporary ones, but this, her debut solo record, consists mainly of self-penned songs, which nevertheless possess a definite flavour of the traditional idiom.

She's an enthusiastic ambassador for the folk music of the Channel Islands, as the first pair of tracks demonstrates - the opening track, When The Forest Was Ships, uses a lyric by Guernsey songwriter and banjoist Shaun Shackleton, and A Guernsey Fisherman's Courtship is a suitably lively arrangement of a bawdy Victorian poem by Thomas Lenfesty originally written in Guernsey patois, to which Claire has put a tune that's rather reminiscent of Three Drunken Maidens (which, coincidentally, happens to be the name of the female a cappella trio with whom Claire sang for four years up until 2013) In fact, the most memorable of Claire's original songs also happens to have a strong local connection: this being Rock In The Sea, inspired by a true story from the last days of the German Occupation of Jersey in 1945.

The sea is almost omnipresent in Claire's writing, however, for the sailor's life (and leisure) on board ship figures large on The Ship Amour and Bound To Leave is a farewell-shanty in the best time-honoured tradition. But outwith the sea per se, Claire's own compositions competently cover the expected bases too: Ballad Of Age is a jaunty little love-story-with-a-twist, while later on the disc drink, life, age and death all feature within the scope of the same song (Drink For Today).

Accompaniment is kept simple, with Claire's unadorned playing joined by various friends on fiddle, bass, cajon and banjo. the instruments and voices of Claire's an attractive singer, with a style of delivery that's accomplished, accessible and inclusive, if perhaps not especially distinctive - except on the traditional material: a well-sung (if maybe slightly over-decorated) a cappella account of Banks Of The Nile, and The Nottingham And Mars, a stirring account (taken from a manuscript at Sausmarez Manor in Guernsey) of the defeat of French ship the Mars in 1746. Yes, Claire proves a keen ambassador for the folk music of the Channel Islands.

David Kidman