Maz O'Connor - The Longing Kind (2016)

One of folk’s brightest young talents sets aside traditional balladry for a self-written third album centred on young love and the exuberance and shadows of twentysomething life. Maz O’Connor swoops up and down the scales with the elan of early Joni Mitchell (though her voice comes with an edge), and pieces like A Winter’s Blues and A Quiet Word roll with the ease of an able guitarist, with producer Jim Moray shading the moods with cello, pedal steel and trumpet. O’Connor shows her mastery on two songs based on paintings. Jane Grey takes the part of the doomed queen of Delaroche, while Greenwood Side gives voice to Millais’s Ophelia, remarking of Hamlet, “he would leave but a shadow behind”. Classy.