Josienne Clarke & Ben Walker at The Glee Glasgow

On Overnight, Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker have brought us an album of wonder and depth. The classic quality of these songs, the meticulous beauty of the arrangements, the blanket-warm production and perfect pairing of exquisite vocals and virtuosic guitar is the culmination of everything these idiosyncratically talented musicians have been working towards since they first met. They cite Sandy Denny, June Tabor, Nic Jones and Pierre Bensusan as respective influences but theirs is a captivating sound that’s all their own.

For Rough Trade founder Geoff Travis, Josienne and Ben’s 2014 album Nothing Can Bring Back The Hour quickly became his favourite record of the year. Bringing them to the label was a way of ensuring their unique music could continue to bloom and also reach a much wider set of ears. In an interview with The Guardian, Geoff described them as “a sublime and important act.”

Despite being self-financed, self-produced, self-arranged and released on the Folk Room label they co-run, Nothing Can Bring Back The Hour brought Josienne and Ben an extraordinary amount of attention. They won Best Duo at the 2015 BBC Folk Awards, and their ovation-stirring rendition of the ballad The Banks of The Sweet Primroses at the ceremony prompted 6 Music DJ Cerys Matthews to invite them to appear in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good at The National Theatre. The Financial Times review of the play said “Josienne Clarke sings like a haunted angel.”