Vinyl Record
Shirley Collins - Archangel Hill
Shirley Collins - Archangel Hill on LP vinyl. A 2023 record available from Kilmorna Collection in Listowel, Ireland.
LP ยท 2023
Available from Kilmorna Collection in Listowel.
Buyer notes: 2023 LP, currently available from the Kilmorna Collection vinyl shelf. Pay for pickup in Listowel or ship within Ireland for EUR 5.50.
Archangel Hill is Shirley Collins in 2023, singing from the far side of one of folk music's most improbable returns. Collins had already been central to English traditional music through the 1950s and 1960s, and her work with Alan Lomax, Davy Graham and the Albion Country Band made her a crucial bridge between collecting, scholarship and performance. Then came decades of silence after dysphonia interrupted her singing life. Archangel Hill belongs to the late revival that began with Lodestar and continued through Heart's Ease, but it has a special authority because it does not treat age as a problem to disguise. The voice is spare, seasoned and exact, surrounded by arrangements that let the songs keep their bones. Hares On The Mountain links back to earlier Collins history, while Fare Thee Well My Dearest Dear, High And Away, June Apple and the spoken family material make the album feel like memory, landscape and repertoire sharing the same room. It is not revivalism as costume; it is traditional song carried by someone who has lived long enough to make continuity sound personal.
Archangel Hill matters because it extends Shirley Collins' late-career return with rare dignity. In 2023, she was not merely revisiting folk history; she was proving that traditional song can gather new meaning when age, family memory and deep repertoire knowledge are allowed to remain audible.
For collectors, Archangel Hill is a key modern chapter in the Shirley Collins story. It belongs beside Lodestar and Heart's Ease as evidence of the comeback years, but it also reaches back toward the older folk revival through songs that carry personal and historical resonance at once.
Late-life English folk with unadorned vocals, restrained acoustic backing, traditional song forms, rural memory, spoken intimacy, modal shadows and arrangements that favour presence over polish.
Recommended for: Collectors of English folk revival and its modern afterlives; Listeners drawn to traditional songs performed with lived authority; Fans of Shirley Collins' Lodestar and Heart's Ease comeback period.
When was Archangel Hill released? Archangel Hill was released in 2023 during Shirley Collins' late-career recording revival. Why is Hares On The Mountain important here? The song connects the album to Collins' earlier folk history, including the tradition-bearing work that made her reputation. What kind of folk album is Archangel Hill? It is a spare, tradition-focused album that foregrounds Collins' aged voice, English repertoire and family-memory atmosphere.