When All is Still

‘The Molecatcher’, the first track of Rachael McShane's terrific album with her new band, The Cartographers, sets the tenor of the whole endeavour. While said molecatcher is out after moles, his wife and a young farmer enjoy each other's company. Eventually the molecatcher catches them in flagrante and demands £10 in recompense. The farmer says he's happy to pay, as this works out at about ‘tuppence a time’. ‘There isdefinitely an element of mischief,’ McShane confirms. ‘The songs capture… moments when nobody is looking.’

Indeed, the album moves beyond the mischievous to the transgressive. ‘Two Sisters’ is a story of sororicide; ‘Sheath and Knife’ is, apparently, in among McShane's ‘top ten’ incest and infanticide songs. The eponymous ‘Lady Isabel’ murders her unwanted suitor to avoid this serial killer murdering her. In ‘Sylvie’ a female highwayman robs her lover at gunpoint to test his loyalty. Had he given up the ring she had given him, she says, she would have shot him dead. And she's not joking. Dark stuff, these folk songs. But, delivered with such rebellious verve and wit – with McShane's singing and fiddle ably backed up by Matthew Ord's guitar and Julian Sutton's melodeon – they are a life-affirming joy.