There’s always room for a talented female folkie who favours the more gothic and ghostly end of the tradition. Maz O’Connor is exactly that, a singer whose songs – both self-penned and traditional – come flavoured by the innate spookiness of her native Cumbria. Maz’s star is fast rising. Only a couple of years on from the culmination of her studies, space has already had to be made on the O’Connor mantelpiece for the Horizon Award from last year’s BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. Her second album – This Willowed Light – is hot off the presses, an eagerly awaited offering that finds another folk visionary, one Jim Moray, guiding things from the producer’s chair. With the purity of her voice never lightening her songs’ themes, Maz’s performances are loaded with the gravity and commitment of a truly folk heavyweight. She’s here to stay.
