Katherine Priddy
The Eternal Rocks Beneath
(Navigator Records)
★★★★

KATHERINE PRIDDY spent two years carefully assembling this enchanting collection and the finished product should help to cement her status as one of the finest young talents on the British roots music scene.

Many of the songs featured here were penned during her teenage years and early twenties and reflect her enduring fascination with the twin themes of childhood and distant memories.

Priddy’s previous musical exploits have been championed by no less a folk luminary than the great Richard Thompson, alongside some influential figures at BBC Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music, and The Eternal Rocks Beneath offers an eloquent celebration of her lifelong love affair with literature and poetry.

Skilfully crafted ditties such as Indigo, Wolf and the elegiac The Summer Has Flown are but three of this hugely impressive debut set’s most beguiling tracks.

Hardin & York
Can’t Keep A Good Man Down
(Cherry Red)
★★★

THIS expansive six-CD set shines a welcome spotlight on the musical output on one of the most attractive musical partnerships to ply their trade during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Messrs Hardin and York first joined forces in the ranks of the Spencer Davis Group before leaving the fold in 1968 to embark on a fairly brief but musically satisfying career as a relatively rare power duo.

The two musical soul mates often referred to themselves as “the world’s smallest big band” and the melodically inventive sound created by singer and keyboard ace Eddie Hardin and drummer Pete York certainly repays closer investigation, with the former prompting comparisons with Traffic’s Steve Winwood as his vocals and organ work embellish soulful gems such as Tomorrow Today.

Toyah
The Blue Meaning
(Cherry Red)
★★★

THE BLUE MEANING was the second album from Toyah Willcox and her like-minded musical cohorts. First unleashed on an unsuspecting world in 1980, it does an excellent job in capturing the sometimes fairly incoherent essence of her distinctive approach to music-making.

The original vinyl release has now been hugely expanded into a 2CD/DVD digipak with the inclusion of a grand total of 27 remastered bonus tracks from the archives, including assorted live tracks, demos, singles mixes and audio rarities, most notably the original version of her 1981 hit It’s A Mystery, recorded with short-lived London outfit Blood Donor a few years earlier.

A recently recorded interview and acoustic session from Toyah herself occupies much of the companion DVD, along with rare BBC TV performances of Mummies and Danced, captured for posterity during her creative heyday four decades ago.