To finally share a treasure with y'all- my coworker a while back introduced me to the Cornwall-based retro soul/funk/doowop band The Mighty Sceptres (whose Nothing Seems to Work scored the montage to my comedy of errors life for a lil while over the summer).
My coworker was bemoaning their lack of albums since 2015, so I looked the band members (Angeline Morrison and Nick Radford) up and found to my great delight that Angeline Morrison not only has other albums under her own name in the same excellent stylings but also! does wyrd/psych folk music with a focus on unpacking the threads of Black experience from the historical UK folk tradition.
I'm surpressing my urge to express how cool this is strictly in the language of exclaimation points, so, to lift up one of her tracks:
This is Child Ballad #295 , and to be honest I've long ignored it since it's at the end of the list and since the other song most notably about a "brown girl" (#73, Lord Thomas and Fair Elliner/The Dun Broon Bride) deals her such an ugly hand (though perhaps her tragedy is meant to inspire sympathy). This, though, is splendid, gloriously unambiguous and unapologetic and I love her.
