2007 Dear Companion [Digipak]    CD  Wichita WEBB145CD 

1 Dear Companion   3:44 
2 River Song   2:31 
3 The Cruelty of Barbary Allen   6:27 
4 Do What You Gotta Do   2:49 
5 Riverhouse in Tinicum   4:01 
6 The Waltze of the Tennis Players   3:06 
7 Maiden in the Moor Lay   2:26 
8 Sweet William and Fair Ellen   5:14 
9 All I Ever Wanted   3:20 
10 Willie O'Winsbury   6:09 
11 Untitled Track   2:28 

Meg Baird is better known as part of the folk collective Espers, who's darkly twisted take on music harks back to the days of Comus. Therefore, you may be expecting some of that theatrical, complex edge to be present here. If so, you'll be disappointed, but surely not for long. In fact, if you're still disappointed 10 seconds into the opening track, "Dear Companion", I'd say you're a heartless shell of a human being. 

It's somehow immensely satisfying to think that after all these years of pop music, in all it's variations, that it's still possible to get such a shiver down your spine from something as simple as an acoustic guitar and a beautiful female voice. This sits apart from most modern folk albums, there's no free or freak edge, no use of electric instruments. Indeed, it hankers after to a different age, when singers were expected to be just that, interpreters of existing song, as only two of the tracks are written by Meg herself. It's an album that could have been recorded at any time in the last 70 years, only the purity of the production can place it as a perfectly modern album. 

There's little point in detailing the songs individually, this is a work that stands together as a whole. All that's needed to say is that Meg has the kind of crystalline voice I've not heard since the heyday of Anne Briggs, Shirley Collins or Maddy Prior. She sings each track as if she's lived it, and fairly wraps the lyrics around your heart. Each and every track here is pared down to its bare essentials of guitar and vocal, and each track is an absolute treasure that can be delved into again and again.

cd ripped by dBpoweramp

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http://dickthespic.org/2010/11/20/meg-baird/