AS the artist’s own name might suggest, Wollow is an album that contains much duality. With roots in both Sicily and England, Sergio blends a British folk honesty with more emotive, exotic and passionate sounds.

But it goes beyond that too. Like any musician, join the dots between their songs and you get to see something of their life and here that line takes in Yorkshire villages and Sicilian farmhouses, the echoes of his teenage footsteps through South America, the suburban hubbub of the modern world.

There is a elemental quality to the album with lyrics which evoke the majesty of open spaces, big skies, the seasons, the weather, the fauna and flora of the world and does so through a range of styles from traditional folk deliveries to more drifting and ambient moments.

And in those more wandering and experimental spaces, the spirit of John Martyn surely hangs above the album nodding approvingly. And as affirmations go, that isn’t a bad one to have. - Dave Franklin