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Nuala Kennedy and Eamon O’Leary: Hydra review – sumptuous folk songs
With guests including Will Oldham and Anaïs Mitchell, this record’s island setting seems to bring extra light and warmth to stories of the sea, love, work, war and migration
To mention it in the album title could be canny marketing for lovers of louche idols Leonard Cohen and Henry Miller, who both found inspiration there, but its prominence also suits this LP’s drowsy warmth, given the extra light brought to these stories of the sea, love, work, war and migration. They reach full late 1960s folk-rock vibes on The Dark-Eyed Sailor and The Bonny Green Tree; closing track Liffeyside has backing vocals from folk-adjacent American royalty – Will Oldham and Anaïs Mitchell – alongside 80-year-old Irish singer Cathal McConnell. Morag Brown and Lewis Powell-Reid ’s Auld Springs New (Bandcamp) mixes fiddles, accordions, guitars and the cittern (a pear-shaped, Renaissance stringed instrument) in a set of pacy traditional tunes that travels from the Scottish borders to the Balkans.
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