Various Artists – The Food of Love Project: Songs from Shakespeare’s Plays & Times (Autolycus Records)

Invigorating collection of folk treatments of songs either featured or referenced in the plays of William Shakespeare, an album put together to mark the Shakespeare Jubilee in 2016.

The variety of shades over the course of the set is impressive; the ominous vocal drone of Dead Rat Orchestra singing ‘Bonnie Sweet Robin is to the greenwood gone’; the plaintiff vocal canons of Stornoway on ‘Eibhlín a riún’; the wonderful courtly atmosphere of ‘Caleno custure me’ as arranged by Alasdair Roberts & Gordon Ferries; Thomas Truax putting ‘Greensleeves’ through his particular surrealist vision, all chiming music boxes, whirrs and scratches; the primal drone and irrepressible vocal lilt of Kirsty Law.

Sweet sweet music for Shakespeare fans and everyone else too.