(Folk/singer-songwriter) Mary Hampton - Folly - 2011, MP3, 320 kbps

Mary Hampton is a folk singer, songwriter and guitarist from Brighton, England.
Hampton has released two self-produced CD-Rs, Book One (2006) and Book Two (2007), containing a mix of original and traditional songs. In 2008 she released My Mother's Children, her first commercially available album, on Navigator Records. The album has been described as "a sparse collection of her own songs, which recline with shimmering sensuality in various shady cloaks of weirdness"[1] and as "songs of unnerving delicacy, elemental and acoustic simplicity...potent and enchanting".[2]
In addition, Hampton contributed vocals to Rough Music, a 2005 album by Eliza Carthy,[3] and sang on Blow It Up, Burn It Down, Kick It 'Til It Bleeds, a 2006 album by Stereolab side project Imitation Electric Piano.[4]
Hampton appeared at the 2008 Green Man Festival to critical acclaim, her set being described as "genuinely memorable". [5]
In June 2009 she toured the UK alongside acclaimed American singer Diane Cluck
In June 2011 she will be touring the UK with her band Mary Hampton Cotillion (made up of musicians Seth Bennett, Jo Burke, Alice Eldridge and Alistair Strachan). Dates include a show at Blaise Castle in Bristol and an inaugural performance in the new rooftop garden at Queen Elizabeth Hall on London's South Bank.
In July 2011, Rough Trade are due to put out a limited edition 7" of the songs "Honey in the Rock" and "Hoax and Benison" from her forthcoming album "Folly".
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

It’s somewhat tempting fate, you might think, to name your record Folly, but it’s been the subject of philosophical enquiry for centuries. In Praise Of Folly, by renaissance scholar Desiderius Erasmus (1466- 1536), known as Prince Of The Humanists, is still in print.
Mary Hampton is clearly a humanist too: her work characterised by an oblique approach to words and music. A great deal of thought and passion is clearly given to writing and making her songs, her performances usually described with words such as “bizarre”, “haunting” and “fragile”. Very, very human.
And yet… despite the care and attention, despite being strangely attractive individually, the eight songs together become too much to take. At the same time, they summon up memories of other songs, other musicians, other eras: Didn’t we hear this one in the 60s? Wasn’t this done by thingamyjig?
Not necessarily bad in itself but, by the time one has worked from The Man Behind The Rhododendron through to Lullaby For The Beleagured it’s enough and more than enough. Sure, we might go back to Benjamin Bowmaneer or Hampton’s distinctive take on Honey In The Rock, but singly, not en masse. Too much fragile whimsy becomes oppressive.
(http://www.recordcollectormag.com)