While Bridget St. John benefited from the early patronage of the likes of John Peel and John Martyn, her songs suggest an entirely self-made artist, someone able to grab hold of the general sensibilities of the sixties folk revival and work them to their own ends. On Ask Me No Questions – produced by Peel, with some guest guitar by Martyn – St. John essays a debut album of quiet confidence. It’s mostly just acoustic guitar and her beautiful, resonant voice, one that draws out its melodies calmy and coolly; there are some lovely, gentle songs early on the album, but the core of Ask Me No Questions comes towards its end, with the beseeching lament of “Broken Faith,” and the hypnotic eight-minute title song, whose intricately woven threads of guitar thread an intricate lattice under St. John’s gentle hymnal, bisected by a poetic interlude of birdsong and church bells.

– Jon Dale