Jon Wilks: Before I Knew What Had Begun I Had Already Lost review – tender and thoughtful

The hard-working West Midlands folk devotee finds inspiration from beyond Birmingham on a lively, inventive fourth LP

Bongeziwe Mabandla: amaXesha review – South African singer in his own lane

The singer-songwriter elevates his reimagining of Xhosa folk music with synth-pop hooks and his melismatic voice

Lucy Farrell: We Are Only Sound review – a fresh, thoughtful debut

(Hudson)A stalwart of the folk scene brings rich experience to her long-brewed first album

Cinder Well: Cadence review – a mysterious deep dive into the ocean

Multi-instrumentalist Amelia Baker conjures realms of poetic sound on a lush, complex, sometimes overwhelming album

The Young’uns: Tiny Notes review – passionate folk in praise of unsung heroes

Paying tribute to David Nott, Lyra McKee and more, the Teesside trio’s eighth album delivers compassion without fanfare

Nina Nastasia review – a mettle-testing, memorable comeback

The American alt-folk singer returns after a 12-year hiatus to worshipful cheers, in a show that condenses her trauma into jagged bursts

Lankum: False Lankum review – folk radicals get in touch with their softer side

Without diluting their power or abandoning their gothic intensity, the Dublin group’s fourth album lulls the listener with songs of exquisite softness and deeply affecting harmony

Hack-Poets Guild: Blackletter Garland review – dark songs from a starry trio

Marry Waterson, Lisa Knapp and Nathaniel Mann combine to revivify a rather gloomy collection of ancient songs

Unthank Smith: Nowhere and Everywhere review – folk veteran and Maxïmo Park man find joy

Rachel Unthank’s voice wraps softly around Paul Smith’s unfussy baritone on an otherworldly album that explores the songs of their mutual homeland

Fern Maddie review – tender and powerful performance of ballads old and new

The folk musician strips her music back to the bones, amplifying the emotional intensity in a cosy firelit space

Lucinda Williams review – dirt mixed with tears in an evening of consummate Americana

The singer-songerwriter leaned in to the precariousness of life as she paid tribute to lost friends, including Jeff Beck and Tom Petty

Ears of the People: Ekonting Songs from Senegal and the Gambia review – living lute songs of love and war

Stories of survival and self-expression suffuse this anthology exploring the ekonting, the three-string gourd instrument

Rozi Plain: Prize review – a thicket of riddles and gently warped folk

Plain leans into her eccentricities and goes far beyond the cotton-soft ambience of previous albums on her fifth

Kevin Morby: This Is a Photograph review – exemplary songwriter wrings light from darkness

Morby’s seventh album was inspired by sickness and mortality but his elegiac songs focus on life’s transience and joys

Fiona Soe Paing: Sand, Silt, Flint review – startling Scottish balladry with a global scope

The Scottish-Burmese singer evokes history, folk tales and atmospheres in this nicely uncanny set blending electronics and field recordings