Certain kinds of music feel ancient. When I listen to the old British folk albums that loom over Hannah Frances’ songs like guiding spirits, it makes sense to me that they were made decades ago, an ocean away. Pentangle, Fairport Convention, Shirley Collins, Nick Drake: It was as if these artists arrived at the tail end of a disappearing age, channeling the last gasps of a supernatural power snuffed out by modernity. Hearing Frances tap into that tradition on last year’s Keeper Of The Shepherd was startling and alluring, like discovering wizards still walk the earth.
