Heartleap

Heartleap works superbly as a collection of songs, and can only serve to extend and preserve her legacy.

As the concluding part of that elongated trilogy, Heartleap is the most magnificent and worthy of valedictions.

It's a firm and deliberate withdrawal from the spotlight but one tinged with sharp self-awareness and the humane intelligence that governs all of Bunyan's work. [Sep 2014, p.52]

A dreamy, immersive mood piece that is as personal as it is instantly accessible. [Nov 2014, p.93]

Another profoundly pastoral and ethereal folk record. [No. 114, p.53]

There's something very satisfying about listening to a woman whose career has been marked by deeply ambivalent encounters with the machinery of the music industry--who was briefly being touted as the next Marianne Faithful under Loog Oldham, and whose work was later forced into a folk mould on Diamond Day--finally seize the means of music production and create an album on her own terms.

A delicate, quietly ruminative collection of songs that she herself arranged and recorded on computer. It sounds, one supposes, exactly as Bunyan intended.

Heartleap is a treasure to withhold, and though it's proclaimed as a departure, it feels both complete and satisfyingly open-ended.

Heartleap benefits from some subtle, unexpected instrumentation, including kalimba and vibraphone butalthough it does include contributions from her touring band (including the great guitarist Gareth Dickson), it still feels personal to the point of being solitary.

Her third album is as intimate as music can be. [Nov 2014, p.108]

This is the distilled, finely crafted essence of Bunyan: a hushed, reflective meditation of an album that seems to have the welcome effect of cancelling out the world around the listener.

If Heartleap does indeed prove to be the final destination of Bunyan's old horse and cart, it's entirely worthy one. [Nov 2014, p.79]

Her work is a testament to the power of even the quietest music to help us feel things deeply, an experience that lasts for a few minutes that we can return to for a lifetime.

If you can cope with the extreme twee, Heartleap is a diamond.

Bunyan has curated a lush musical mobile of soundscapes.