Olivia Chaney, The Longest River (Nonesuch)

The official back story of Olivia Chaney, whose debut album has been long awaited by those who have acclaimed her as the new star of folk, has her being saved from her wayward teens, after an upbringing in Florence, the daughter of a British academic, by her own studies at the Royal Academy of Music.

She plays Edinburgh's Voodoo Rooms on May 17, but the disc's official launch is in King's Place, London before she appears at the Handel Festival in Gottingen in Germany. Although the comparisons with Joni Mitchell that have been made for her own songs are understandable, it seems clearer that she sees herself as part of a much longer tradition of English song, going right back to Henry Purcell, whose There's Not A Swain is a highlight here. Although her own Swimming in the Longest River is an eloquent expression of what she is about musically, the covers and traditional songs, like The False Bride, which opens the album, shine brightest. Her instrumental cohorts, cellist Oliver Coates, drummer Leo Taylor and Jordan Hunt, are all more familiar with the Purcell Room that the Voodoo Rooms, and her arrangements on Sidsel Emdresen's Blessed Instant and Alasdair Roberts's Waxwing make the most of their skills.

Keith Bruce