The Best Folk Songs of 2013 (So Far)

Hometown: Baltimore, Maryland

Album: Lost No Labor

The pastoral stillness that Baltimore's Soft Cat channel into winding, unconventional tracks is an element not often found in modern releases. The ability to turn a landscape into sound—to represent the countryside with a song—is a skill and a concept that has passed out of fashion. As society becomes progressively urban, there's less space for reflection, and less beauty to reflect upon. A single to listen to Lost No Labor by Soft Cat erases those cares. The extensive use of instruments and softly sung phonic syllables reflects an interest in the lullabye-like facet of folk, a nearly nonsensical study of sonics meant to soothe and relax. This band is relatively unknown, but with a lithe, comforting sound like the one they've developed, they won't be unknown for long. Their obscurity certainly hasn't stopped them from making some of the best folk music that's come out so far this year.

Hometown: Brattleboro, Vermont

Album: Bright Sunny South

Sam Amidon's initial foray into music was back in 2001 and it involved fiddles. Born to parents who are involved in the folk music community in a variety of ways, Amidon was drawn into folk's fold as his birthright—his marriage to freak-folk songstress Beth Orton only cemented his place in the genre further. Despite his blood and marital ties to the music though, it's apparent that Sam has a knack and a love for the genre that's all his own—illustrated adroitly in his bluesy, gravel-ridden "As I Roved Out." More reminiscent of Dylan's take on Guthrie than anything else, Amidon cherry-picks the historical heritage of the genre without ever pilfering anyone else's style, he's adept at putting his own spin on traditional mindsets, a key skill required for anyone attempting the traditional song structures he takes on.

Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky

Album: Regions of Light and Sound of God

After all that he's accomplished it seems like Jim James is still underrated by most of the greater listening community. Maybe James felt that way too and that's why he decided, after the sixth My Morning Jacket studio album, that it was time for him to release a solo record of original material. Regions of Light and Sound of God is an incredible record and highly slept-on, psychedelia slowed down to the pace of a lazy Sunday afternoon, and plenty of weird vocal solos and instrumental breaks to make sure that laziness is constantly interrupted. Opener "State of the Art - A.E.I.O.U." sets the tone for the whole record, revolving around a bluesy lick that's built upon over the course of five minutes, James croons on and on about spiritual topics, technology,  human subjectivity and then devolves into vowel repetition—sounds about right.

Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee

Album: Impossible Truth

Listening to music that's purely instrumental is a challenge for our device-addicted, digitally-ill society. It takes a special guitar player to release an album devoid of lyrics and still gain attention from coveted media scions. Tyler is special, his guitar playing feels like a narrative in itself, and on his excellent sophomore release Impossible Truth, the track"Cadillac Desert" especially feels like a story. If it could speak, it seems the music would tell of sadness, of windy, sand-strewn struggles and failures to escape the blasting heat. The heft of the track comes in the first two-thirds, eventually slimming down into what amounts to one thread at the end, resigned to the ending of the tale, whatever loss it may contain. Truly the best solo acoustic guitar work released since John Fahey, it's impossible not to evoke his name in any discussion of Tyler's music, a promising omen for such a young artist.

Hometown: Durham, North Carolina

Album: Haw

Hiss Golden Messenger emerged when MC Taylor and Scott Hirsch relocated to North Carolina and ditched their hardcore roots. Both musicians in previous bands, the duo gelled when they left behind former projects and began creating hooky, blues-infused music that draws heavily from the Southern atmosphere they now inhabit. Their fourth studio album Haw draws its name from a local river and flaws within the native landscape of North Carolina as easily as any physical tributary. "Red Rose Nantahal" is a choice cut from the full-formed record, now dallying in tiny annoyances like getting locked out of your car, then swooping into deeper, existential concerns about the path to true happiness.

Hometown: Chapin, South Carolina

Album: Ghost on Ghost

At this point in Sam Beam's prolific, checkered career, it seems debatable if he's even capable of making a bad song. Sure, there's some that stand out more than others, but everything from his lauded Postal Service cover "Such Great Heights" to his Calexico collaborative album In the Reins have been solid contributions to the body of modern folk music that has been quietly amassing. His latest release Ghost on Ghost contains the same bevy of brilliant sound mash-ups, lyrical deliberations and "Caught in the Briars" displays his skill best. The track opens with Beam finger-picking the intro to his fifth studio album, there's the fusion-jazz that was so heavy on 2010's Kiss Each Other Clean, there's naked people metaphorically trapped in brambles, should we really go on? Hum-sung "ooohs" and xylophone-inspired trappings wrap around piano solos and drums heavy in the mix as Beam's unforgettable voice waltzes above all of it. He might be one of the ones that never loses the ability to create innovatively on each and every album.

Hometown: Durham/Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Album: Miracle Temple 

The house on fire on the cover of Mount Moriah's latest release should be enough warning to indicate that this is an album about fire and light. It's a record about the warming and destructive duality of electric, golden warmth, it further tells of darkness and its equal possibilities for safety and danger. "Bright Light" paints this dichotomy in the clearest terms, taking the blinding power of light and blessed cover of darkness to illustrate one of life's greatest lessons—it's all about perspective.

Hometown: Shawnee, Oklahoma

Album: Kid Face

Why am I not reading about Samantha Crain everywhere? The 26-year-old Oklahoma native is one of the best things to happen to 2013 and yet the year itself hasn't seemed to notice her innovative rhythms, inventive vocal style and solidly grounded folk debut Kid Face. With traditional elements like fiddles and galloping drums soundtracking her fresh-faced vocal stylings, there's a deep, woodsy grain to Crain's voice that invites bluegrass comparisons. She's beyond zydeco or Americana though, there's soul and rock elements mixed in with the fiddlin', and the incredible stop-motion-ish video she created for "Never Going Back" further enhances the track's backbone of defiance and juvenile charm.

Hometown: Hampshire, England

Album: Once I Was an Eagle

Marling is sitting pretty atop four fabulous folk albums at the impossibly young age of 23, and her latest might be the crown jewel. It's pretty clear to anyone that's given Marling's mic-ed up, close-sung record even the most cursory listen that this is a contender for album of the year. Summing up the work in it's entirety is an even more difficult task than usual given that the first half comes to us ensuite, seven songs stitched together like a Biblical passage or a lengthy poem, no less reliant upon each other than verses in a song. Even so, "I Was an Eagle" can be detached with the greatest ease, and it's record title referencing name lends greater credibility to the idea that it comes the closest to summing up Marling's message—she's a bird of prey, vicious and regal, and we're the brown-feathered doves destined to hide, fear and revere her piercing art.

Hometown: Barking, England

Album: Tooth and Nail

There's not many compliments left to pay Billy Bragg, he doesn't need our approval nor does he care about the fact that he's almost unanimously got it since the inception of his career. After thirty years, Bragg has built himself a reputation as a stalwart in music—not just folk—but in rock, punk, Americana, blues, alt-country and politically-charged songs. 2013's Tooth and Nail seems to reflect his dissatisfaction with the way things have become and, simultaneously, a refusal to let go of the idea that things can get better. "No One Knows Nothing Anymore" employs just enough grammatically incorrectness to ensure that his slanted disavowal of modern circumstance is bedded in a deep commitment to the folk tradition and its ability to subvert larger cultural tropes with sly breaks here and there. If anyone can affect change at this point, Bragg seems like a pretty good candidate.

Hometown: Old Town, Maine

Album: American Kid

Patty Griffin's winding road to recording music might be at its peak with American Kid. Beginning her career in the late '90s, it's only recently that Griffin has begun to get the kudos she deserves. Grammy nominations and a stint as part of Robert Plant's latest project Band of Joy have introduced her into the mainstream. Her latest album, out just under a month ago, illustrates that the 49-year-old singer/songwriter shows no signs of slowing down. "That Kind of Lonely" is a slow-burning, mournful tune that somehow avoids the pitfalls of pity-partying and encapsulates the bitter pill that growing old can be. Perhaps referencing the pain from her divorce, this song pines not just for things that have been lost, but for vows to never again be involved in the act of losing them. Its graceful repose and easy twang usher it into the fold of classic tracks that will be around for decades, and reassures that though Griffin may be a little older, she's just gaining her stride.