The Voyager

This is a disconcerting record. It has crisp production values and every so often threatens to erupt into 1980s Kate Bush / Talk Talk / Japan concept-pop grandiosity, the new age dreaminess of Clannad, or even into the more modern archness of someone like Caroline Polachek. But every time, it pauses on the brink then returns back to its base mode of hypnotically repetitious, pagan folk sounds. Scottish-Danish artist Connelly has talked of her love of ancient landscapes, but you wouldn’t need to be pre-warned to know that from her music — this record positively emanates misty hillsides, stone circles, Celtic and Viking designs obscured by moss and ancient, ambivalent presences.