The Unthanks – In Winter
A brand new bumper double album of winter songs kicks off this list by the increasingly experimental singing sisters from Tyneside. Well-known carols and traditional tunes sit around lesser-known pearls such as Middlesbrough singer Graeme Miles’s gorgeous evocation of weather and wonder Dark December, Hugh Lupton and Chris Wood’s heartbreaking Bleary Winter, and parting song Dear Companions, with the band backed by a choir of 60 from their popular residential singing courses.
The Young Tradition – The Holly Bears a Crown
In 1969, the same year as Shirley and Dolly Collins’ ambitious, early music-inspired Anthems in Eden, they teamed up with folk trio the Young Tradition (Peter Bellamy, Royston Wood and Heather Wood) for this record of stark winter a cappellas and portative organ-backed songs (although because of a split in the trio, it wasn’t released until 1995). The full-bodied delivery of 15th-century feasting song The Boar’s Head Carol is delivered with as much gusto as the fabulous winter songs on the Watersons’ year-spanning Frost and Fire, while Shirley and Dolly’s version of The Cherry Tree Carol is mystically beautiful; check out Shirley’s banjo-accompanied version on her 1959 debut, and her best take, with Davy Graham on their 1965 masterpiece Folk Roots, New Routes, for more celestial chill.
Burd Ellen – Says the Never Beyond
Eight traditional songs that brilliantly crackle with black, icy atmospheres lie here, courtesy of Scottish duo Debbie Armour and Gayle Brogan and their fabulous voices. Over a backdrop of drones, synthesisers and shivering zithers, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Cornish and Welsh songs twist side by side, like their extraordinary Corpus Christi Carol (famously sung by Jeff Buckley on his 1994 debut, Grace) and Hela’r Dryw Bach, about the pre-Christian ritual of hunting wrens on the day after Christmas.
John Fahey – The New Possibility: John Fahey’s Guitar Soli
Its title comes from theologian Paul Tillich’s phrase about what Jesus’s birth represented, and this 1968 album was, neatly, the first of four festive outings for American steel-string guitarist Fahey. A musician whose other work dug into the roots of US folk and blues, these recordings are among his gentlest, prettiest output, although a bracing sharpness comes in the spiky harmonics beginning The Bells of St Mary’s and the swooping slide techniques on spiritual Go I Will Send Thee.
Various Artists – Four Seasons in Folk: Winter
This 2021 compilation from revered British label Topic Records (85 years old this year) kicks off with one of the greatest ever winter performances: Scottish singer Dick Gaughan’s muscular yet tender take on Northumbrian folk song The Snows They Melt the Soonest. Also affecting are raw recordings of Yorkshire singer Frank Hinchliffe’s It Hails, It Rains; Kentucky singer Sarah Ogan Gunning’s Old Jack Frost; and Martin Carthy’s version of Dave Goulder’s shapeshifting walk through the year, January Man.
The Poor Clares – Songs from Midwinter
A New Orleans-based Irish trio who toured the world at the turn of the millennium, the Poor Clares’ 1998 Christmas album sparkles like a folk-rock classic from Sandy Denny and Maddy Prior’s prime. Revelations include Manx Gaelic song Ny Kirree Fo Niaghtey (The Sheep Under the Snow), Cajun drinking song Trinquez (Clink Glasses) and singer Betsy McGovern’s lovely voice on I Wonder As I Wander, Kentucky folklorist John Jacob Niles’ adaptation of a Christian folk hymn.
Alula Down – Postcards from Godley Moor 2020/21
Their fourth seasonal release in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, husband-and-wife duo Mark Waters and Kate Gathercole blend traditional songs, field recordings, instrumentals and originals on this seven-song set recorded “between the cross-quarter days of Samhain and Imbolc”. A softly twitching take on The Snows That Melt the Soonest and 14th-century Herefordshire ballad Winter Wakens All My Care are spine-tingling, Gathercole’s high delicate voice in the latter being layered over the distant explosions of New Year fireworks.
Various – Plygain
Its cover art aping the Sex Pistols’ debut (Never Mind the Bollocks: Here’s the Plygain, it screams), this anthology on legendary Welsh punk label Anrhefn Records celebrates the carols sung in pre-dawn Christmas Day services in 18th and 19th-century Wales. Standout tracks include 9 Bach’s gorgeous whirl through Roedd Yn Y Wlad Honno (There Was in That Country) and Gareth Bonello’s moving take on Cloch Erfyl (Bell of Erfyl).
Ensemble Alioni – A Georgian Christmas
Many great recordings of powerful eastern European and west Asian a cappella songs exist, and this is a stunning representative set of 13 full-throated renditions of Alilo (Alleluia) Christmas songs. Named after the locations of their genesis across the country – from the Caucasus mountains to the Black Sea – songs such as Alilo Kakheti and Rach’uli Alilo somehow simultaneously arrest and comfort the listener, the voices of the mixed-gender chorus consistently thrilling.
Janice Burns & Jon Doran – Great Joy to the New
A north-east England-based duo that have taken time over the last seven Decembers to exchange festive songs, Burns and Doran’s 2024 collection brings mandolins, harmoniums and brass to this cosily firelit set. Especially comforting are their takes on Down in Yon Forest (dating back to a 15th-century Derbyshire ballad), the nativity-referencing Dunstan Lullaby, and Norwegian yule song Haugebonden. Head home, tune in and warm up.
