Cambridge-based singer-songwriter Odette Michell has been hotly tipped as ‘one to watch’ since releasing her debut album The Wildest Rose back in 2019. And with good reason.
Now, five years on, comes the award-winning performer’s second studio album The Queen of the Lowlands. Released on June 13 on the Talking Elephant Records label it unveils ten evocative, self-penned tracks weaving together personal and historical story songs, songs of the sea and extraordinary people.
These are fresh, contemporary compositions but Michell blurs the lines so successfully you could easily believe some songs come straight from the traditional canon.
She says: “My approach to songwriting is to try to be as authentic as possible while keeping a foothold in the folk tradition – it’s a balancing act but every song is personal to me at some level.”
Yorkshire born with an Irish heritage, she mixes clear, engaging vocals with deft bouzouki and guitar-playing in an album sharply but sensitively produced by Megson’s gifted Stu Hanna.
Hanna also plays mandolin, fiddle, bass and percussion on the release, which boasts an enviable line-up of guest musicians – notably top-flight fiddlers Phil Beer (Show of Hands) and Chris Leslie (Fairport Convention, The Albion Band).
Odette also performs in exciting new trio Michell, Pfeiffer and Kulesh and here Daria Kulesh appears as a guest vocalist. Elsewhere duet vocals are delivered by Liverpool-based Scottish folk singer Calum Gilligan and popular Dorset duo Ninebarrow (Jon Whitley and Jay LaBouchardiere). Completing the guest list is Lukas Drinkwater on double bass and Vicki Swan on Scottish small pipes.
Raised in a musical household Odette first picked up the guitar at fifteen and, inspired by the resurgence of folk and acoustic songwriters at the time, began writing her own songs. Growing up in Cambridge she was perfectly placed for two early club stage appearances at the Cambridge Folk Festival – her first when she was just 22.
Odette has performed alongside the likes of Show of Hands, and opened for folk luminaries Martin Carthy, Phil Beer, Boo Hewerdine, Nancy Kerr, Reg Meuross and BBC Radio 2 Folk Award nominees Ninebarrow.
In The Queen of the Lowlands it is evident that Odette’s songwriting has become more sophisticated, her craft more polished.
The driving title track – with Chris Leslie dazzling on soaring fiddle, brings to life the story of the Dutch passenger steamship SS Koningen der Nederlanden (Queen of the Lowlands) named after Queen Wilhelmina. Converted into a troop ship in WW1 she transported American Expeditionary Forces to France and later repatriated more than 10,000 troops to U.S. ports.
Says Odette: “I first saw a painting of the ship hanging on a Hertfordshire pub wall and was captivated by this true but little-known story of the ‘hero ship’ recommissioned to repatriate war-weary troops back to their home shores. I wanted to write a song that highlights the huge part she played.”
The album starts in gentler mood with The Woodlark & the Fieldfare – a soothing, sensory celebration of the restorative powers of nature to troubled minds – an aural forest bathing, augmented by the gentle vocals of the Ninebarrow duo.
That theme continues in the sublime, hopeful Hourglass – a life-affirming song that suggests ‘even after the darkest of winters, the cherry blossom will burst into flower in spring’. It uses the analogy of a grain of sand in an hourglass measuring a day in a life. Dedicated to Odette’s father it is a duet with Calum Gilligan.
St Helen’s is a family-inspired song about Odette’s 19th century ancestor Mary Quinn, who fled from Ireland and endured an arduous sea crossing to Liverpool where she became the central character in a true Merseyside love story. It’s an engagingly simple but affecting narrative song. Odette says: “Sometimes we think our family history isn’t that interesting until we start to scratch the surface – and then the stories – and songs – flow.”
The great Scottish novelist and poet Robert Louis Stevenson is the inspiration for the poignant Requiem, featuring guest musicians Phil Beer and Vicki Swan.
Says Odette: “It’s a tribute and insight into his all too short life, referencing his poem and epitaph of the same name.” (Stevenson died aged just 44).
Michell and Kulesh co-wrote the modern folk fairy tale Flowers. Penned after taking a long walk through English woods one summer’s day it tells the story of a robber’s meeting with sisters Rose, Daisy and Lily, ultimately ending as a murder ballad.
The upbeat, percussive Lady Constance tells the tale of rebel Anglo-Irish countess, suffragist and political activist Constance Markevicz (1868-1927). Says Odette: “She died penniless after giving away the last of her wealth.”
A stand-out song on the album, and one of the first written for it, is the mournful and haunting Waterline inspired by eerie photographs of rusting trawlers at Fleetwood on Lancashire’s Fylde coast – boats destroyed by their owners’ own hand in return for cash handouts from Brussels, so wrecking a once flourishing fishing community.
Penultimate track My Love is Like The Rondelet is a stark, stripped back true story of a failed long-distance relationship – a ‘cri de coeur’ with unsettling fiddle and insistent, climactic drums.
Closing out the album is the jaunty All the Bonny Ships, embroidered by choppy violin, which Odette describes as “an optimistic song based on the true story of my father’s Polish parents, separated for seven years during the Second World War and against all odds, reunited again in England in 1946.”
It’s a joyful end to a captivating and versatile album.
Since she set out Odette has been variously likened to Kate Rusby, Karine Polwart, Anne Briggs, Sandy Denny and June Tabor. This inspired collection of original, heartfelt songs should prove that she needs no honourable comparisons. She is standing tall … as Odette Michell.
The Queen of the Lowlands London album launch will be at Heath Street Baptist Church, Hampstead on Wednesday June 11 at 8pm. Odette will be joined by Phil Beer on fiddle and Stu Hanna on mandolin and backing vocals.
Tickets available here odette-michell-album-launch-with-special-guests
Spring/Summer Tour Dates 2025:
08 May – Crookes Folk Club, Sheffield
22 May – Maidenhead Folk Club, Taplow, Maidenhead
26 May – Folk in the Cellar, London
28 May – Banbury Folk Club, Banbury
11 Jun – ALBUM LAUNCH (+Phil Beer & Stu Hanna) Heath Street Baptist Church, Hampstead, London
13 Jun – Cambridge Folk Club (with MPK)
14 Jun – ACE Space, Newbury (with MPK)
15 Jun – Ashburton Arts Centre, Devon (with MPK)
16 Jun – Sidmouth Acoustic Folk Club, Devon (with MPK)
20 Jun – Colindale Barnet Folk Club, Barnet
18 Jul – Festival at The Edge, Kidderminster (with MPK)
12 Sep – Barnoldswick Arts Centre (Double Headline with Craig Joiner)
15 Sep – Green Note, London (Double Headline with Craig Joiner)
21 Sep – Hot Box, Chelmsford (Double Headline with Craig Joiner)
12 Oct – Twickfolk, London (with MPK)
(*MPK = Michell, Pfeiffer & Kulesh)
For further information please visit: www.odettemichell.com
