Review: The Telegraph (Colin Randall)

Anna Esslemont is too restless to allow herself to be boxed into musical corners. Having abandoned studies at the Royal Northern College of Music after finding them inflexible, she shows no more inclination to be restricted by the BBC Young Folk Award won by her trio in 2003.

Folk tunes laced with classical influences lifted Uiscedwr's debut. On Circle, the folk tunes occasionally struggle to be heard at all as Esslemont's cultured but free-spirited violin leads her partners into exotic territory.

Her songwriting and vocals peak on America, a bitter tale of separation. But Esslemont's playing provides most of the thrills, as well as seeming impossibly vibrant, given her year-long battle with a rare blood disorder that still requires her to have weekly transfusions.

Listening to her proceed from scat to violin harmonics on The Beast, a Swedish polska running into a piece of her own, you begin to wonder where it is all leading. Yet Esslemont pulls it off with aplomb, ably assisted by Cormac Byrne and Kevin Dempsey. Folk has hopefully matured into a broad enough church to accommodate Uiscedwr's divine eccentricity.