Ninety-Nine Impressions (Uk)

Ashley has come a long way since his early days of Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span. In fact some 99 albums later. At this point in his distinguished career, Ninety-Nine. Impressions is both a surprise and the most logical album one could expect, being a sequence of poems and prose pieces set to minimal musical accompaniment. Spoken word has been a part of Ashley's work since Steeleye Span, perhaps most notably on Rattlebone and Ploughjack and An Hour with Cecil Sharp, but this is the first album to be centred entirely upon the voice. While a long way from folk rock, what connects it to his most celebrated work from the past half-century or so is it's historical and cultural depth reframed for the immediate present.