Heart's Ease

Deftly indisputable on Heart's Ease, Collins' music acts as a cultural time capsule to preserve legacies.

The voice of Shirley Collins is blossoming again, delivering its compelling stories with the urgency of a singer who simply had to make this record. Collins is a musical key worker, her songs compelling at every turn.

It's as touching, beautiful and dark as any of Collins' records, and even pushes her sound into new territories. 65 years into her recording career, that modern approach to folk music is still yielding treasures. [Sep 2020, p.24]

It’s a real banquet, a feat of folk re-contextualisation driven forward by the sharp emotional instincts of its formidable maker.

Heart's Ease goes further, revealing she's still a vital performer and an artist willing to explore new and unfamiliar territory, suggesting a more interesting future than listeners might have imagined.

Heart’s Ease picks up directly from where Lodestar left off. The lightness of touch of that earlier album, the delicate and sparse instrumental backing, so unobtrusive it enables rather than dominates, and her knack of filleting songs down to their bony essence, are all elements Collins pursues further here. [Aug 2020, p.52]

Her voice and band discernibly crackle with confidence. [Aug 2020, p.86]

A poignant revisiting of Whitsun Dance catches the profound power of this richly arranged album. [Aug 2020, p.105]

Heart’s Ease is ample evidence that Shirley Collins still has the ambition, passion and guts to not only document where folk has come from but where it’s going. A lodestar, indeed.

Collins’ past, present and future come together to form a fascinating picture of her full, complex character.

An album that is assured, contemplative, and sometimes a bit sad.

Heart’s Ease captures the Shirley Collins of the present day, and is in no way an attempt to recreate times passed. And yet the continuity is crystal clear: Collins’ devotion to the folk tradition is as strong as ever. She continues to bring new life to the musical artefact that is the folk song, and the fact that she brings so many years of her own to these interpretations makes them feel all the more authentic.