Changeable Heart

Notman first hit the folk scene back in 2007 with her debut, Threads, leading to a nomination for the BBC Young Folk Awards that year. Following 2009's The Life of Lilly, she disappeared from the music scene to enter medicine and is now a physician associate at the University of Sheffield. Happily, medicine's gain has not led altogether to music's loss, for a decade later here she is with former Britain's Got Talent performer, BBC Folk Award Horizon winner and lead man of his superlative The Lost Boys, Sam Kelly.

This is a big and lively set of largely traditional songs – the likes of ‘The Cunning Cobbler’ (a farcical cuckold's tale whose final, wife-beating verse is omitted) and the lovely ‘Caw the Yowes’ that follows it, adapted by Burns from a contemporary poet, Isabel Pagan – alongside co-written originals like the yearning, lovelorn title-track and Notman's own ‘As You Find Your Way Home’, which features Kelly's brilliant, limpid work on electric tenor guitar. Recorded at Pure Studios, and featuring guests including Damien O'Kane and whistle player Ross Ainslie, the production gifts it a full, rich sound and both Notman and Kelly are in excellent voice, solo and together, their simpatico harmonies driving many of the tracks home.