Named after and dedicated to her mother, Emilia Mårtensson's Loredana is a collection of heart-stopping songs filled with music of enormous delicacy, subtlety and imagination. Mårtensson's predilection for the melancholic is evidenced by ‘Aino’, whose young protagonist prefers to kill herself rather than be forced into marriage with a much older man, and the heart-rending Swedish folk song, ‘Jag Unnar Dig Ändå Allt Gott’, which is sung from the viewpoint of a broken-hearted lover. Sigurta's remarkable, scene-setting introduction to the latter sounds like some kind of ancient horn calling armies into battle. Other highlights include the more experimental textures of ‘There (Reversed Lullaby)’, in which Adewale's kit shifts from effects to room sound, Jamie Doe's lyrical ‘Weariest River’ and Mårtensson's folk-like ‘One More For Ana’ for which she provides her own ghostly backing vocals. Recorded at Livingstone Studios in North London, the album's soundworld is strongly flavoured by Boscagin's different tunings and processed sounds, which serve to open up the textural palette. The yearning ‘Be Still-Grow’ brings this ethereally beautiful album to an affecting close.