Daisy Rickman

The chill hasn’t quite left the air just yet. The roots of Winter hold strong — just enough time left in the tumbler for the crisp-air scent of Daisy Rickman’s Howl to come in on the Eastern winds. The album, recorded by Rickman, primarily at her Cornwall home, captures the air of solitude that brought it forth. Rickman picks up the beguiling folk traditions of Bridgette St. John, Bert Jansch, Nick Drake, and Bill Fay. Her works are imbued with a stillness, carried on picked strings and a voice that dips through melancholy on its way to the sublime. Rickman proves a keen prowess in capturing the mercurial moments in life. Her songs fill the marrow with wonder — oil slick reflections that shift through beauty weighted by a wanting darkness.

Howl is, at its heart, an ode to the sun and starlight. It captures the light through the tress, a verdant veneer that turns afternoon into its own emotion. It harnesses the night air, far from the city’s prying eyes, the head encircled by ringlets of breath as the notes reach towards the beacons above. Dissonance and delight pull at the album, as Rickman’s sonorous voice is cocooned by strums and shaken by bouzouki, sitar, and accordion. The album is meditative, leaning on its Anglican folk forms, but stitching much further afield through circular movement and an undercurrent of rag. The year will no doubt produce an abundance of folk albums, but it’s doubtful that many will be as wondrously affecting as Howl.

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