Maz Totterdell
Album: Sweep
Label: Series 8
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.reverbnation.com/maztotterdell

The thing about the folk/singer-songwriter scene is the way that it covers the whole age range. I've seen club nights open with someone skiving off from their home work and closed by someone collecting their pension and travelling on their bus pass. There's awards and competitions for both ends of the spectrum and all ages in between. That said it really is the way the scene allows and encourages new young blood for which it should rightly be commended.

Over the years we've covered many an artist that has come to attention through the Young Tradition Award and others that end up nominated for the Horizon as they make their breakthrough, we've also featured a lot of young acts, solo, bands and duos that have carved their own furrow and it's on that path that we find Maz Totterdell.

Maz is just fifteen, which shouldn't matter a jot, and it doesn't, except to provide me with the opportunity to say I can't believe that "Sweep" her debut album was written by someone of that age, such is the maturity of the songwriting process. Totterdell is obviously a deep and reflective thinker and judging by her songs, one able to turn thoughts and imagination into great songs.

"Blushing Bride" is a good example, it's not a song entirely set in romantic fiction as I'm sure would have been a temptation, whilst there is a celebration of union aspects of the song focus on the wider reflection that in moving on, it's inevitable that others are left behind as lives change direction, it's a really powerful piece that wouldn't be out of place in a Sandy Denny songbook.

You can hear elements of other acts and singers on "Sweep" it's almost inevitable that as you're developing your own style, those that influence you will find a way into the sound, that being the case the likes of Gilmore Roberts and Lucy Ward are not bad starting points.

This is a damned fine debut by any standard, there's a real strength throughout, from the more rocky songs to the slow sung thoughts on the coming of age. This is an album of someone that's seeking recognition as an artist and pretty much getting it on the mark from the off. Definitely one to get in on from the start, because here's a new talent worth taking the time out for.

Neil King