Hannah Sanders & Ben Savage - Awake (2018)

Two years on from their critically adored duo debut, Before The Sun, Hannah Sanders and Ben Savage return with an even more accomplished collection that, save for four numbers, are all self-penned. It opens with two such, Selkie Song, a simple setting of Sanders’ vocals and Chris Poole’s banjo as, horns making an appearance midway, she sings of a mythological seal-woman’s yearning to return to the sea. On a darker note, I Met A Man reworks the age-old story of a doomed romantic encounter between a woman and a green man (rather less poetically known as a foliate head), the yearning in the pure vocals complemented by Burke Carroll’s pedal steel and Savage’s intimate fingerpicked acoustic guitar.