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Spell Songs II: Let the Light In<\/em> (Quercus Records), the second album by the Spell Songs ensemble<\/a>, is a magical release. The performers first came together to create a musical accompaniment to the book The Lost Words<\/em><\/a>, written by Robert Macfarlane and illustrated by Jackie Morris; the new album is inspired by their subsequent book, The Lost Spells. <\/em>The books celebrate the wonder of nature, and the performers are drawn from the cream of the British-based folk scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \u201cBramble,\u201d Karine Polwart\u2019s cool, precise vocal depicts a city slowly becoming engulfed by \u201cthorn arches;\u201d in \u201cMoth,\u201d her recitation of moth names becomes a kind of poetry (she describes the lyric as \u201ca moth mantra for banishing fear, and conjuring delight\u201d). The light-hearted harmonies on \u201cDaisy\u201d take you back to childhood days of making flower chains. The haunting \u201cSt. Kilda Wren,\u201d sung by Julie Fowlis in the original Gaelic, is a poignant yearning for the return of the bird to the Scottish archipelago. The song titles reveal the simplicity of the subjects: \u201cBarn Owl,\u201d \u201cSilver Birch,\u201d \u201cOak.\u201d The performers (also including musicians Kris Drever and Jim Molyneux, cellist Beth Porter, harpist Rachel Newton, and Senegal-born multi-instrumentalist Seckou Keita) create sublime music to reveal the beauty within.<\/p>\n\n\n\n