Rise

A music teacher and luthier, as well as a songwriter based in Portsmouth and with roots in Merthyr, South Wales, Amy Goddard is a regular on Portsmouth’s folk and acoustic scene, and this is her fourth album, featuring the whistles and pipes of Ross Ainslie (who has been a three-time Musician of the Year nominee at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards on whistles and pipe), as well as Hannah Fisher, fiddle player for Idlewild and King Creosote, and the electric guitar of Jon Lewis.

Opening song ‘Make Your Mark’ has a lyric addressing the plight of the world’s prisoners of conscience, while in contrast, the album’s single, second song ‘Cornish Mist’ is a lyrical, vivid take on the power of place and landscape, and with some distinct musical accompaniment from Brian Kutscher on the cellotron, a vintage piece of kit that delivers synth strings quite unlike any other. ‘Hope Springs’ is more pared down, to just voice and acoustic guitar, and it’s all the more effective for it. ‘Odin’ features Ainslie’s pipes, a propulsive drum beat driving this cover of one of veteran US singer-songwriter John Stewart’s songs (his ‘Hunters of the Sun’ also features). Rise should help to make Goddard’s music more widely known.