Lucy Farrell: All We Are Is Sound review – a fresh, thoughtful debut

A gifted singer and accomplished multi-instrumentalist, Lucy Farrell has spent the past decade playing alongside British folk aristocracy in assorted aggregations, most recently as part of the Furrow Collective with Alasdair Roberts, Rachel Newton and Emily Portman. This debut has been a long time coming, a collection of songs written along the way, through romances, breakups, motherhood and more.

Its freshness, then, is all the more remarkable. Opener Paperthin bursts out in a flurry of guitars and double-tracked vocals as if it wants to wake up the world. The record’s atmosphere owes something to being recorded in the medieval walls of Wenlock Abbey, home to Nick Drake’s sister Gabrielle, who granted Farrell and her musicians the use of her late brother’s instruments (folk’s equivalent of borrowing George Harrison’s Rickenbacker). Lau’s Kris Drever is among those supplying discreet but telling support to a set that slips easily by.

Everything is tuneful, the moods run from exuberance to stillness and doubt, and there is a backdrop of wintry seashore to several songs, but for a musician schooled in trad folk’s narrative arts, there’s precious little in the way of story. It’s about “questions rather than answers”, admits Farrell, but in songcraft, hooklines and choruses also come in handy.