Anna Tam - Hatching Hares (2022)

The second album from folk singer and multi-instrumentalist Anna Tam following on from 2021’s Anchoress. Anna has been shortlisted by Fatea as ‘Instrumentalist of the Year’ in both 2020 and 2021. She gives traditional British songs her own loving personal twist, sings with a ‘ in pure’ voice and performs on cello, nyckelharpa, viola da gamba, hurdy gurdy and piano. Hatching Hares was written whilst we're coming out of isolation; daring to hope and starting to have a little fun again. There are more people in the songs than in Anchoress. They interact, grieve, fall in love, go to the fair, sew, spin, steal, joke, die and sober up. The title comes from the fourth verse of When I Was A Little Girl: 'I bought myself a little hen and of her I took great care, I set her on a mussel shell and she hatched me out a hare.' Instrumentally it includes the piano on my boat as well as viola da gamba, nyckelharpa, cello and hurdy gurdy and welcomes two special guests - fiddler Geoffrey Irwin (also on Anchoress) and electronic sound artist srah who worked with samples of my singing and playing on the ghost song Holland Handkerchief. There are ten songs and five tunes: two self written waltzes and the rest traditional. The rep was trialled and explored on my weekly YouTube series Folk from the Boat.