Hannah Sanders
Album: Fate
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 3
Website: http://www.hannahsandersfolk.com

Around 15 months ago, Hannah released a strikingly assured solo EP (Warning Bells) that persuasively demonstrated her strengths, both as a singer of considerable stature and a guitarist of no mean ability. Doubtless much encouraged by the very positive reception the EP received, she's spent the intervening year preparing for a full-length album (due to appear early in 2015), and a new EP, Fate, is now released in eager anticipation of (i.e. an official taster for) that record.

Hannah's special vocal skills are even more tellingly endorsed on this brief new set, not only in her compelling tone and consummate control of range and register but also in her creative sense of line, which ensures that each interpretation is personal and powerfully individual. Hannah's performance mode is loosely traditional, the material itself what I'd term neo-traditional; her limpid and forwardly engaging account of I'll Weave My Love A Garland opens the set in style, with some magnificently judged dobro playing from the disc's producer Ben Savage (and bass from Jon Thorne) providing a gently rich layer of icing on the delicious cake of Hannah's interpretation. There are shades of Sandy Denny in Hannah's expert vocal delivery at times (which should be taken as a serious compliment and not a criticism, I hasten to add). In contrast, the EP's centrepiece is an edgy, driven cover of Dylan's quasi-traditional epic Seven Curses - oft covered of late, but rarely so thoughtfully as this, and benefitting too from Ben Smith's guest guitar contribution which complements Hannah's own baritone dulcimer accompaniment. The disc winds down nicely with a really appealing, beautifully relaxed account of Stephen Foster's Hard Times which I hear as much akin to early Joni Mitchell, in terms of melodic manipulation and vocal compass (diagnostic features like confident leaps in register), moulding of phrasing and basic style of guitar accompaniment; Ben Savage's dobro also gives Hannah some wonderfully empathic support here.

Oh I wish Hannah had been able to give us more than three tracks! For if that forthcoming album's anything like as lovely as the present EP, it promises to be something really special; I can hardly wait.

David Kidman