Listen: 'Serafina'

Those who remember Home Burial, the hauntingly beautiful 2016 album from Belfast-band Arborist, might recognise the voice that opens Sea Songs. Mark McCambridge – a man who seems so immersed in folk culture that we can only imagine him living in a thatched hut in the Glens – has reinvented himself as M.Cambridge for his new solo album.

Sea Songs sees Cambridge reinterpreting old Sea Shanties – archived by folk musician Stan Hugill – as well as reimagining some of the finer Ulster ‘weaver poems’ and throwing in his own original songs in between. As with the likes of Junior Brother and Joshua Burnside, Cambridge’s style is raw and unadorned – folk at its most heart-on-sleeve and bare-boned.

To be fair, it would take this kind of style to really give credence to his theme – where Cambridge becomes archivist, memoirist and field recorder. He takes his sources and lets them breathe again through his voice. He pays homage to the crew-men working on the decks of packet ships in Ireland, USA and England. Beyond that, he makes these tunes – which are, at their heart, about finding hope and joy despite the slog of hard labour and uncertain times – resonant with the contemporary moment.

8/10

out now