You've heard of a 'folk-revival'? Well welcome to the 'nu-folk revolution'
After what seems like an inexhaustible stream of quirky British indie, it certainly is a welcome breath of fresh air to hear the startling nu-folk stylings of twenty-four year old singer, multi-instrumentalist, arranger and producer, Jim Moray.
The six-minute elegy for lost love opens with an emotive orchestral burst of intensity that rises and soars into a shower of twinkling atmospherics. Moray's vocals fuse a beautiful smoothness that sends you weak at the knees, with a passionate, almost painful, rawness. While the slow-paced tempo of the drums thumps like a dying heartbeat in the background and a spacey melody offers a momentary reprieve, the vocals rejoin the mix to wrench your heart once more before leaving you breathless.
Moray's seminal debut 'Sweet England' was credited with revolutionizing the traditional folk genre and won the young artist the BBC Folk Album of the Year award; Moray combines traditional English folk influences with a contemporary twist (that has seen him compared to the likes of Anthony & The Johnsons and Rufus Wainwright) to create an original style that pushes forward the boundaries traditional folk to towards the exciting new sound of 'nu-folk'.
Available for download from his website, 'My Sweet Rose' offers a tantalizing taster of what we can expect from Moray's self-titled follow-up album, expected on the 1st May.