Jesca Hoop: Stone Child review – folk song balladry mixed with isolation

Sometimes you have to go back to where you came from to figure out where you’re going. Folk artist Jesca Hoop does this metaphorically and quite literally on her fifth album

Having spent the last decade living in Manchester, where she has close ties with the members of Elbow, she packed up her belongings and returned to California to get a finer sense of herself and the stories she tells.

Old Fear of Father mimics the balladry of an ancient folk song but its tales of internalised misogyny could equally find a home in the modern world or the 1800s. With layered harmonies and a plucked guitar, these time-travelling parallels run through Red White and Black, which compares the abolition of slavery to the current prison system.

In a more daring takedown, the blurred lines of online relationships are eerily explored on Outside of Eden, which features Kate Stables (This is the Kit).

Hoop creates an enclosed world for the listener to inhabit and as achieved by the isolation touched upon on Shoulder Charge, she finds a shared feeling and creates a connection for us to latch onto.