Dear Sheddists,my second 'Top Ten' album is 'Here's The Tender Coming' by the utterly fantastic Unthanks. Their music goes well beyond the modern folk idiom into ethereal realms that have to be heard to be believed.
In addition to re-imagining traditional folk songs and writing their own the Unthanks repertoire includes interpretations of music by King Crimson, Antony & the Johnsons and Robert Wyatt. Their most recent album features the work of Molly Drake, mother of the late Nick Drake and a fine musician in her own right.
I could have chosen any of their albums - they're all astonishingly brilliant - but I picked this one because it contains 'Annachie Gordon' a truly sublime take on a song of loss and unrequited love which dates back to the start of the nineteenth century.
Folk music in its purest form is anything but anodyne. It speaks of love, death, longing, separation, pain and suffering at the very deepest level. Here, the intertwined voices of Rachel and Becky Unthank float above a lovingly sensitive arrangement by Adrian McNally, Rachel's husband. I've heard this song so many, many different times, both on record and live, and it never ceases to reduce me to tears.
We've seen this band perform more than any other and each time we see them we come away enriched and reflective. Here are some photos from last year's Home Gathering, an annual Festival organised by the Unthanks in their native north-east.
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