‘Fretless’ follows Emily’s excellent debut album ‘Shire Boy’ and while there are similarities in approach as they’re both relaxed collections mixing her own songs, contemporary covers and trad material, this is a more substantial disc in every area.
Things get off to a great start with a seamless sequence of four songs including a wonderful reading of Clive Gregson’s ‘Blue Rose’, but it’s the next four songs (two originals and two drawn from other sources) that provide the highlights. It starts with what feels like very British and very contemporary folk song ‘Towerblocks and Lullabies’, this is followed by a traditional song ‘Female Rambling Sailor’, it’s a great tale and Emily provides a strong vocal to compliment the thoughtful strings and piano arrangement. ‘John Rand’ is another original, it’s obviously contemporary but has English folk overtones, this is a real success - it sounds excellent and feels like it’s been around for years; and finally she covers ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’, it’s a simple arrangement with just acoustic guitar and fiddle, she sings the song really well and in this stripped down form it really highlights the strength and power of the lyrics.
The instrumentation is fairly simple throughout, Emily’s acoustic guitar work consistently excellent, and there are instrumental and vocal contributions from Kathryn Roberts, Kellie While, Phil Beer, Maartin Allcock and Mike Silver across the eleven tracks.
‘Fretless’ is a strong disc with a clean, uncluttered and individual sound, and although the material is drawn from a wide range of sources, she has chosen the songs with care and the whole album has a real flow. An excellent contemporary folk album.

£12.99