I don’t mind admitting that as I write begging missives are winging their way to various press folk in the hope that we can secure a copy of ‘Hidden Seam’ because if the title track is anything to go by then this album has the potential to provide for an alluring atmospherically astute audio adventure of such measure as to cast all who experience it upon a delirious swoon. Due for release shortly via navigator records Lisa Knapp’s second full length platter builds upon the critical glow lavished upon her debuting ‘wild and undaunted’ set from 2007. The jewel in the nu folk crown, Knapp ingeniously crafts an intricate myriad of emotions that sway and swerve between the frail, the hopeful and the inspired, seconds shy of the six minute ticker tape teaser track ’Hidden Seam’ is awash with frost chipped beauty, timid and hushed Knapp opines like a youthful Bjork in her Sugarcubes days or for that matter like a vulnerably crushed Harriet Wheeler drawing deeply on a lost folk tongue traced to a noir rubbed classicism. The effect measured and majestic softly thaws to unfurl and flower in stature and magnitude, the tip toeing string corteges and the down tempo beats accentuated by the vividly intense Brontean braiding endow the occasion with a stately aura to coo and caress with a strange sensuality not unlike a young Ms Bush. Divine in a word.
