Hatching Hares

A one-time member of early music-cum-folk ensembles Wilde Roses and the Mediaeval Baebes, Tam is an acclaimed multi-instrumentalist with a strikingly clear soprano voice whose debut solo album, Anchoress (June 2021, #168), appeared during lockdown. This, its follow-up, scoops up a new set of traditional songs and tunes set to stripped-down arrangements for nyckelharpa, viola da gamba, hurdy-gurdy, cello and piano. While Anchoress was recorded in lockdown on Tam’s canal boat home (from where she broadcasts her Folk from the Boat YouTube series), Hatching Hares was made as the country began to emerge from lockdown, with guest turns from fiddler Geoffrey Irwin and sound artist srah, who works with samples of Tam’s singing and playing for the ghost song ‘Holland Handkerchief’.

There are five sets of tunes, including two self-penned waltzes, among the 15 tracks, and they’re among the album’s highlights, especially ‘Polska’, ‘Sleep Soond Ida Mornin’ and ‘Planxty Irwin’, while among the songs, the inventive and absorbing settings to the likes of ‘The Snow It Melts the Soonest’ and the album’s opener, ‘Brigg Fair’ help to make this a strong and absorbing follow-up to Anchoress.