A game, a problem and an homage – three acoustic albums that you might have missed

The Janus Game by Steve Tilston & Jez Lowe – A Problem of Our Kind by Gilmore & Roberts – Hommage à Marcel Dadi by Various Artists

Before the recent release of his solo acoustic retrospective Distant Days Steve Tilston collaborated with fellow stalwart of the English folk scene Jez Lowe to produce The Janus Game. The rousing title track sets the scene with alternating vocals, a memorable hook and a mellifluous blending of Tilston's guitar and Lowe's bouzouki and harmonica.

These finely-crafted songs treat their subjects with great affection, whether focusing on child refugees, a young woman heading off to holiday in the sun or a pair of elderly friends. Unexpected lyrical flourishes abound. In 'The Strings That Wizz Once Strummed' Tilston sings: 'electrical bananas may have played their part'. 'Leaving for Spain' has the wonderful couplet: 'Beneath some hot sun she believes she belongs, Factor 50, silk sarong'. There are musical surprises too – the melody to 'Mrs Einstein' is pleasingly reminiscent of Whistling Jack Smith's 'I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman'.

The contrast between Tilston's vocals and Lowe's tender, lulling voice (with its discernible north-eastern accent) is very effective, as is the subtle use of Lowe's mountain dulcimer on 'Tattered and Torn'. The stirring 'On Beacon Hill' could almost be a Gordon Lightfoot song while 'Shiney Row' is wonderfully warm-hearted. The Janus Game shows how contemporary English folk music can embody dignity, strength and compassion. 

Like Tilston and Lowe, three times nominees at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Katriona Gilmore (fiddle, mandolin) and Jamie Roberts (guitar) are an impressive duo. Comparisons with that other folk twosome, Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman, are a little inevitable - Jamie is Kathryn's brother (while Sean is, of course, brother of Seth Lakeman.) Katriona demonstrates some of the urgency of Seth's fiddle style on opening track 'Gauntlet' but, on the whole, Gilmore & Roberts' approach is more restrained and gentle.

The cleverly punning 'Just a Piece of Wood' is Katriona's affectionate homage to her instrument. We imagine the narrator talking to a lover ... until the chorus: "I wish you could explain every mark and every grain/Whose hands caressed your neck before I could..."

This, their fifth studio album, alternates Katriona's contrasting compositions with Jamie's. The centrepiece of the collection, 'On the Line', is a reflection on the public's reactions to suicide on railway tracks, and what this tells us about our society. This song's lyric also gives the album its title: "And it goes much further than this station, it's a problem of our kind/But a change must come somewhere down the line..."

  

Tunisian-born French guitarist Marcel Dadi was a master of the finger-picking style associated with Chet Atkins and Merle Travis. A popular performer, composer and interpreter he was also held in affection as a guitar teacher, thanks to his instructional videos and the tablatures that accompanied his albums.

Tragically, in 1996, after being honoured in Nashville's Country Music Hall of Fame, Dadi was killed when TWA Flight 800 exploded. Marking the twentieth anniversary of his death, German label Acoustic Music Records decided to assemble a host of outstanding guitarists to pay tribute to Dadi's music with the release of this collection. Care has been taken to vary the tempo between upbeat tracks like Albert Lee's version of 'Swingy Boogie' and more reflective pieces like Martin Taylor's 'En attendant Joachim' and Muriel Anderson's delicate 'Winther's Waltz'. Inevitably, though, a whole album of guitar instrumentals performed by virtuosi players in honour of a celebrated guitarist is likely to appeal more to guitar devotees than to the general listener.

Pierre Bensusan contributes 'Waltz For Paula' while Jacques Stotzem's driving 'L'écho des savanes' and Roland Dyens' haunting 'Nous trois' are both astonishingly beautiful. Fittingly, the collection concludes with Dadi's own version of 'Song for Chet'.