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Ok, so first off I must iterate the fact that this particular run down is in no particular order, nor is it a definitive list of the best British record labels of all time (as if such a breakdown could ever be truly quantified). It is simply a list of some personal favourites within the British...MORE>>

A song dripping with country and western nostalgia from Alessi’s Ark’s forthcoming album Notes From the Treehouse, The Dog evokes classic cowboy films, settlers crossing the prairie and gold-seekers on their historic rush to California. Fitting for a song that starts with the lyrics, “You strike gold…”

 

But just quickly: I would like to take this opportunity to declare my unbridled enthusiasm for banjos. Call me a yokel and banish me to Bumpkinland, they make me so happy. Perhaps best associated with having the life bashed out of them on Dixieland jazz records, but because I do not consider myself a child of the 1900s they remind me of The Muppet Movie. Yes they do. Of Kermit the Frog sitting in an idyllic marsh strumming out The Rainbow Connection on a miniature muppet model [ok, they also remind me of a fat old banjo player at a recent folkie

 

gig in south London who I had a little crush on until he told a particularly racist joke but that’s another story…].

So this is where Alessi’s Ark wins me over. The eighteen year old singer from London, Alessi Laurent-Marke is not banjo-shy. Musically, she rides on the same bus as Laura Marling and Joanna Newsom to work every morning [they probably swap notes and gossip…]. And her dreamy melodies appear as if from the most exquisite music box imaginable; with Alessi, gingham-dressed and flowery, spinning around in the middle. But if Alessi leans in the direction of country music it sometimes only shows itself in a tempo perfectly timed for horse-riding.

Or in the blissful use of the banjo. It only takes a few seconds but once it bouncily kicks in, The Dog is transformed from pretty decent to brilliant folk tunery. Suddenly Alessi is sharing a log with Kermit, throwing him wistful glances like a truly qualified Sesame Street presenter. Milking this Muppet theme for all its worth, Alessi might’ve bagged herself the “Rich and Famous” contract by signing to Virgin. But with major label budgets behind her debut album, talk of over-production hangs over its head. Orchestral arrangements and excessive harps are rumoured to threaten the simplicity of its nu-folk credentials. But this remains to be seen.