Frankie Armstrong - Cats of Coven Lawn review | Jude Rogers's folk album of the month

The Guardian 0

(GFM Records)
The Natural Voice authority marks her 80th year with an album of politics, yearning and otherworldliness, always stretching her sound

Frankie Armstrong has the voice of an outsider artist: tremulous, earnest, often whimsical, occasionally beautiful. Her singing began in the skiffle boom, before she joined Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger’s Critics Group; after years teaching Natural Voice singing, she’s sung live with Lankum in recent years, and joined a new band, Green Ribbons, with Alasdair Roberts, Bird in the Belly’s Ben Webb and Burd Ellen’s Debbie Armour. The release of Cats of Coven Lawn coincides with her 80th birthday. Throughout, it crackles with a rough-hewn, abrasive intimacy.